


in the middle of your paradise

by Alois_Zirconia



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Anxiety, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Banter, Confrontations, Domestic, Domestic Violence, Drama, Eating Disorders, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Fluff, Food Issues, Friends to Lovers, Gaslighting, Getting Together, Hallmark movie plot device, Hand Jobs, Healing, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Matchmaking, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Pining, Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator, Verbal Abuse, Victim Blaming, men being cute with kids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29115423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alois_Zirconia/pseuds/Alois_Zirconia
Summary: “Oh my god,” Ryan rushes in a hushed voice, “Scott. He – he’s not doing too great.”Scott steps closer, alarmed.As Ryan winds off his scarf, he continues, “We were out at this diner type place. And he – I think he saw his ex there, like–” he lowers his voice like Shane’s there to hear him, “his abusive ex.”Scott stills. “His–?”Ryan nods nervously, looking to him for confirmation. They stand there, hovering, in the shadowed entryway.“His abusive ex,” Scott intones.Or,It was a brand new start, in a fresh city, and Ryan hadn’t ever met Trevor. Telling him had been like a weight off of Shane's shoulders. He was the one person Shane trusted with the knowledge. It didn’t hurt that Ryan actuallybelievedhim.Then they spend Thanksgiving in Schaumburg and it all unravels.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej, Shane Madej/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 70





	1. bene castigat

**Author's Note:**

>   
> Hey so like the conflict set-up for this to happen is paper thin, so please sheathe your pointy critical thinking skills. A lot of this is pretty hand-wavy.
> 
> This fic contains some serious misuse of – to represent stuttering and halting in speech. I’m sorry if it’s jarring; it’s supposed to read like how casual speech sounds.
> 
> Title is from Mother Mother’s _Back To Life_.
> 
> Heed the tags! Although most of the heavy stuff is in chapter 1 and 4.
> 
> Obvious disclaimer: this is all fiction! ‘Tis Sherry Madej in name only, and I am sorry.  
> 

Two hundred and five days after the break-up, Shane moves to LA.

Three hundred and fifty days after the break-up, he gets a job at BuzzFeed.

Three hundred and ninety-five days after the break-up, he meets Ryan Bergara. They hit it off; Shane likes his bright smile.

Four hundred and fifteen days after the break-up, they hang out outside of work for the first time. They get drinks at some bar Ryan likes.

Four hundred and thirty-eight days after the break-up, they hang out at Ryan’s place for the first time. They watch Speed Racer and gush about the visual effects.

Four hundred and fifty-two days after the break-up, Shane casually mentions in passing conversation that he’s gay.

Five hundred and seventy-eight days after the break-up, Ryan hangs out at Shane’s apartment for the first time. It happens so carelessly Ryan barely notices he’s never seen Shane’s apartment before. He just says _hey, cool poster_ and moves on.

One thousand, two hundred and forty-three days after the break-up, Shane tells Ryan about Trevor.

* * *

“I hate this,” Ryan groans, face pressed into his desk. Shane hums sympathetically next to him, where he’s looking over Ryan’s shoulder at the screen.

They had decided to shoot the episode in fall, for that spooky feel. The forest would be orange and yellow, the overcast sky grey: TJ had a whole vision. What Ryan subjectively felt was poor scheduling on the team’s part put the shoot _right_ before Thanksgiving. They would stay there two days in total to film, and then leave two days before Thanksgiving. Objectively poor scheduling on _Ryan’s_ part was procrastinating ordering the plane tickets, even after promising Katie he would get right on it.

“Why’s everyone in Chicago gotta go to LA all of a sudden?” Refreshing the page brought the same results – four plane seats left in the days before Thanksgiving. For the six of them.

Ryan groaned again, letting his forehead fall to his battered desk. “ _Chicago?_ Wh– Are they all hitting the beach or something, post-turkey?”

Shane sipped his tea serenely. “It’s an old Midwestern tradition, Ryan. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without the post-turkey swim. Don’t even get me _started_ on the volleyball tournament.”

Against his better judgement Ryan lifts his head to look at Shane, who is messing with him, of course. His sleepy eyes are crinkled over the rim of his cup. Ryan thumps his head back down.

Rationally, he knows he’s gonna give the tickets to the crew. They work so hard for practically no credit. People are happy to think that Shane and Ryan just waltz into these haunted locations alone, forgetting the planning, and funding, and transport, and filming, and sound, and all the work in post. The team deserve to be put first for once, after all they’ve done, and they have families to go home to. TJ has a _baby_ , for fuck’s sake. Speaking of families, though:

Ryan drags his hands down his face. “My mom is going to _kill_ me.”

Shane is back to writing with his clickety keyboard, but hums for him to go on.

“My aunt just had a baby, and mom’s been breathing down my neck for months about how I never call her, and there’s some wedding stuff going on…” Ryan sighs. “I don’t know, man. She’s gonna beat my ass.” Another thing occurs to him. “Wait, how many – I can’t stay in a hotel for a _week_ –”

“Ryan.” Shane’s looking at him like he just tried to eat a crayon.

Ryan doesn’t get it. “What? I don’t get it.”

Smiling, Shane answers like it’s obvious: “You’re not staying in a _hotel_.”

* * *

Sure enough, at noon on November 24th, Ryan and Shane say their goodbyes to the crew at the hotel. They help them pack up the gear, watch the car pull away, and then get in their own rental car and drive 3 ½ hours to Schaumburg.

Everything’s really flat and open, like a city made entirely out of parking lots. But as they get into the suburbs it gradually becomes greener, until they pull up outside a slate grey two-story house. “Casa Madej,” Shane announces, turning off the car and getting out.

The door’s open: they haul in their luggage and take off their shoes. As Ryan’s pulling off his jacket, he takes a look around. The walls are covered in 70s style wooden paneling, and there are tacky cursive signs. Ryan walks closer to the largest one, which says “chase your _dreams_ but always know the _road_ will bring you _home_ again”. He tries not to make a face, but Shane laughs behind him anyway.

They walk further into the house, and Ryan passes childhood pictures – he catches a glimpse of a tween Shane, which is _surreal_. As they approach the kitchen doorway, Shane points up and Ryan follows his gaze to a wrought iron WELCOME sign.

“Wow,” he says under his breath, and the laugh Shane lets out attracts the attention of his mother, who shrieks in surprise. “Shane!” she scolds. “Why didn’t you – god, you’ll be the death of me.” She bustles towards him and sweeps him up into a hug. She only comes up to Shane’s armpit: it’s kind of funny.

Ryan stands behind them and waits awkwardly. Shane’s mother pulls away and starts fussing with her son’s hair until she finally notices him. “Oh!” she exclaims. She really is lively. “You must be _Ryan_ ,” she puts some weight on his name, glancing towards Shane, “I’m Sherry, but you can just call me Ma.”

At that, she sweeps him up into a hug too. Her head sits just below Ryan’s chin, and she’s wearing a floral perfume. ‘Call me Ma’ – _Yeah, **no**_ , he thinks. Shane looks at his face and wheezes knowingly. Ryan sends a mental apology to his own mom in Arcadia. Thank god they’re at the level of friendship where they know each other’s parents’ names. Ryan wouldn’t have survived the indignity of calling some Midwestern woman he technically doesn’t know _Ma_.

“Your father– Mark!” she barks, and they all wait to hear an answer. None comes. “I think he’s out in the backyard,” she reveals in a motherly whisper. Then she’s talking excitedly about some chicken recipe, walking back over to the counter. She takes out two glass bottles of unmarked – ice coffee?

“ _Cold_ hot chocolate,” Sherry announces with great relish. “Heather – you remember Heather? – had this great new idea, she’s been giving them out to everyone.” From another drawer she procures two small plastic pouches of marshmallows, as a… snack? “I’m sure you boys won’t mind, it’s so hot in California!” she chortles. Dutifully, neither of them point out they’ve been in Illinois for three days now.

Ryan politely accepts the ice-cold bottle and packet of marshmallows. At least it’s hot in the kitchen. “Hey,” Shane whispers quietly when they have a moment alone. “Sorry about my mom. She’s a lot.”

 _I’m just glad to be hanging out with you_ , Ryan thinks pathetically. On the outside he smiles at Shane. “This is great bit material, dude. You are gonna _get_ it later.” Whoops, Freudian slip. Ryan sees Shane’s eyebrows raise, but the big guy doesn’t comment. He doesn’t get a chance, really – Sherry’s talking again.

Shane really does look embarrassed, though: he’s wilting, shoulders hunching so he almost looks like a reasonable height. That’s not right.

“Hey,” Ryan whispers, elbowing Shane gently. “It’s fine. Moms, am I right?”

Shane laughs: _mission success._

Someone thumps down the stairs, but thankfully it’s a familiar face. Scott lives about an hour away from them: they once went to Knott’s together. It was fun, he’s great. He also looks like the opposite of Shane, with short hair and a _huge_ beard. He must have driven up from Cali earlier.

“Scott!” Ryan says, delighted.

Shane’s brother smiles and heads over to give them bro hugs, with plenty of thumping on the back. He, too, grimaces at the cold glass bottles. “Leave the marshmallows,” he whispers conspiratorially. Raising his voice, he hollers, “We’re gonna sit with dad, introduce him to Ryan,” and when Sherry answers affirmatively they file out.

Shane puts his hand on Ryan’s back, steers him back towards the entryway to pick up their coats and shoes, and Ryan swallows hard. He tries to suppress any soppy thoughts, but a stray _spending Thanksgiving with the big guy_ slips out anyway.

In the backyard, which is strewn with brown leaves, Shane’s father sits on a wooden bench in front of a bonfire. _He looks like a Dad_ , is Ryan’s first thought. _Capital D_. He can see where Shane and Scott got the nose from.

Mark Madej raises his beer in a salute as they get closer. “Hey boys!” he greets, and then leans to the side for a better look, “And Ryan! From California! That’s right, you did say that,” he remarks to Shane as they sit down.

From a yellow plastic crate at his feet, he pulls out three beer bottles and hands them out. Shane leaves his, and cracks open the chocolate milk instead. Ryan follows suit: it’s actually pretty good. _Good job, Heather_ , he thinks gingerly.

Maybe next Thanksgiving he’ll drag Shane to Arcadia – and never live it down, _ever_ , for the rest of his life – just so he can watch Shane try to remember the names of all his aunts and uncles.

“Plane trouble?” Mark asks. “I heard everyone’s trying to get outta here for Thanksgiving.”

Shane gives a close-lipped smile. “Not us,” he remarks, and looks at Scott, who salutes him with his beer bottle.

Their father chuckles. “Maybe they want to hit the beach after Thanksgiving dinner.” Ryan freezes in deja vu, and quickly looks at Shane, who catches his eye and bursts into a wheeze. “Yeah, dad,” he snickers, “gonna play some volleyball after,” and Mark barks a laugh too.

An hour or so later, when Ryan’s feeling the cold in his toes – he’s wearing sneakers, sue him – they go inside for dinner. It’s chicken with roasted vegetables. Mark asks him about the behind-the-scenes of _Unsolved_ , and what episode they just filmed. Ryan’s happy to talk about it, and it’s far better than whatever Sherry is nagging at Shane about. Ryan hears something about his haircut and _flower patterns for spring_ and wisely decides to tune it out.

“I need to go pick up some more things for the dinner,” Sherry brings up, “and I won’t be able to get out of the kitchen on Thanksgiving. So I thought we could hit up the farmer’s market, and you boys could join if you wanted to,” she directs towards Shane and Ryan.

Shane doesn’t interject, and Ryan is left with the responsibility to politely turn down wandering around looking at colorful gourds for two hours. “Uh–” he tries, but thankfully Scott interjects.

“Why don’t you show him around town?” he suggests to Shane. “Ryan’s never been here before. You could show him your old haunts.”

“You wanna see the bush I threw up in once?” Shane invites, deadpan, but Ryan is willing to throw down to avoid the farmer’s market.

“I think that sounds great,” Ryan enthuses. _This is the first act of a Hallmark movie_ , his brain remarks, and he valiantly ignores it.

“Wonderful!” Sherry exclaims.

* * *

At 9:23, they depart in an old Toyota Camry. Ryan sits in the backseat next to Shane and nods along to what Sherry’s saying. Shane looks out the window the entire time. It’s a short ride, though – in under 10 minutes they’re there. Mark and Sherry drop them off in a parking lot, then drive off in search of butternut squash.

Out of the car, Shane brightens a bit. He tugs his beanie down on his head, smiling at Ryan like they’re not standing around in an empty parking lot.

“Uh,” Ryan says. “Where are we going, big guy?”

Shane looks up and surveys their surroundings like a hawk. “The school,” he decides, and starts walking in what looks like an arbitrary direction to Ryan. They cross the wide street and get to a big campus building with a huge roof spanning across the entrance steps. _Schaumburg High School,_ declares a yellowing sign.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I won prom tickets for wearing lederhosen?” Shane says, which is obviously fallacious and therefore _delightfully_ intriguing.

Thus starts a day of the most titillating show-and-tell Ryan’s ever taken part in, where they walk through the liminal space of Shane’s childhood. The suburbs have big beige houses with neatly trimmed hedges, where the streets gently curve into each other. Everything’s grey and beige and brown. It’s like a parallel version of Ryan’s childhood: his own suburbs were just a little wilder, his asphalt roads a little rougher.

Shane tells tales of his frozen pet parrot Paco, of prom night food poisoning and of stealing a fake owl from a bank. Ryan can’t get enough. As they sit on a park bench, looking out over a still lake, he sneaks little glances at Shane’s face. He’s telling a story about how he tried to learn ventriloquism as a kid. His face is animated and bright as he spins his yarn. Ryan’s having some unfortunate personal epiphanies.

Shane’s told him before how much he loves nature, but Ryan really sees it now, on this chilly November morning. Even just walking down empty suburb streets, something in Shane comes alive. His eyes sparkle such that Ryan completely forgets about his own frozen nose and too-thin bomber jacket.

Ryan even manages to wheedle Shane into stopping by a small gift shop, where he buys a stupid snow globe that says _Chicago_ in that stupid brown font that’s straight out of an old Western. While Ryan pays, the girl at the register hands the plastic bag off to Shane.

On the sidewalk, Shane then refuses to hand it off, saying it’ll drag along the ground. Ryan unsuccessfully tries to snatch it out of his hands, but Shane just holds it out of reach with his long, long arms. In his head, Ryan can practically hear the Hallmark CEO cracking his knuckles.

Shane’s high tales are interspersed with softer stories of making skits and stop-motion animation, and sitting in diners with friends, and making out with girls. They stop in at another green spot, this one more of a neighborhood playground. Shane won’t tell him why he knows this spot, only grins conspiratorially. They take turns pushing each other on clean plastic swings that neither of them had growing up.

Eventually, as noon approaches, Ryan’s forced to make a fuss. “I’m ravenous,” he comments, looking at Shane’s implacable face. “Aren’t you?”

“Way ahead of you, shortstack,” Shane rebuts easily, still keeping a fast pace with his long legs. “I’m about to rock your world.”

They finally clear the miles of suburbia – god, how long have they been walking? – to see a main road. Right there on the corner is a brick building that proclaims _Checkers Breakfast & Lunch_. “Best spot in town,” Shane winks. Inside is a diner that is already teeming with people, but by the virtue of some food-based deity they still manage to snag a booth.

Ryan later remembers this part in flashes: the big windows, the leather menu, the retro theming. Ryan ordered apricot French toast, Shane ordered some spinach omelette monstrosity. It had probably only been 15 minutes when Shane –

froze.

* * *

When they get home, the house is quiet and cold. Shane practically flings his shoes and coat off before he tears up the stairs, gone before Ryan can even think to stop him.

“…Hey,” Scott says belatedly from the kitchen doorway, where he’s drinking a cup of coffee.

“Oh my god,” Ryan rushes in a hushed voice, “Scott. He – he’s not doing too great.”

Scott steps closer, alarmed. He kindly takes the small shopping bag Ryan hands off.

As Ryan winds off his scarf, he continues, “We were out at this diner type place. And he – I think he saw his – ex there, like–” he lowers his voice like Shane’s there to hear him, “his abusive ex.”

Scott stills. “His–?”

Ryan nods nervously, looking to him for confirmation. They stand there, hovering, in the shadowed entryway.

“His abusive ex,” Scott intones.

Ryan nods again. “Yeah, like – um, short hair, brown eyes, looked like a personal trainer kinda – ”

Scott’s face is blank and stiff. “…Trevor?”

“Uh, I think so. I don’t know. He never said that, he just–” Ryan’s biting his lip anxiously. “He saw him and just froze. I don’t know. He was wearing a snapback. He was with some jock looking guys.”

“Trevor,” Scott confirms, so certain that he tastes bile in the back of his throat.

“I don’t wanna – I feel bad talking about this behind his back,” Ryan confesses. He’s wringing his hands nervously, Scott notes with a distant, reflexive sense of amusement. It feels like a fog has consumed him. He’s so confused, he can’t _think_ , can’t speak–

Ryan is nothing but words. “He wouldn’t talk to me the entire way back. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know if he wants me to comfort him...?” and here Ryan looks up at Scott, a clear cue:

_I don’t know your brother like you do._

Scott’s arm is aching from holding the teacup aloft. His knuckles are white where he grips the handle. Ryan keeps looking to him for guidance, eyes flickering neurotically between him and the stairs. Upstairs it’s very, very quiet.

He doesn’t know what to tell Ryan. He doesn’t know how to tell him that they’re both flying blind, that he doesn’t know how to comfort his own brother, that _Ryan Bergara knows his brother better than he does_ –

Distantly, he hears himself respond. It takes a couple seconds for his brain to register what came out of his mouth: _I’ll go check on him._

Ryan deflates and looks like a very grateful puppy. “Yeah, dude. I’ll, uh, wait downstairs.”

Scott… walks to the kitchen table, puts down his teacup. He feels like he’s in a stranger’s house in the middle of a night; like he’s gone downstairs at a sleepover, in search of a glass of water.

He kinda feels like an NPC. _Cutscene over, no more actions in this area. Proceed to next area._

He wipes his palms on his pants and starts up the stairs. _Continue on your quest_.

With that in mind, he creeps up the stairs, trying to be silent. Stealthy.

He comes to a divergence of paths: the bathroom, or Shane’s childhood bedroom. He chooses _left_ , the bathroom. The door is firmly shut and likely locked, but Scott can hear wheezing through the paneled wood.

Shane is crying. Scott recognizes the sound from his childhood; the hitching breath, the pauses to gulp silently. The desperate attempt to be inconspicuous, like the world will ignore him if he’s quiet enough.

Scott is forced to admit that he wasn’t wrong.

“Shane,” he says steadily, and rests his hand on the door. Immediately, the noises hush; Scott can imagine Shane huddled, frozen in trepidation. “Let me help you. I don’t know what’s wrong,” he lies.

They’re masters at obfuscation. At the same time, their mother raised them to have manners. “I’m fine,” Shane lies right back. His voice is painfully hoarse.

“We’re better than this, Shane,” he says to the bathroom door. “Please let me help you.” Scott wants to be in there with his brother. He wants to be a trusted confidant. It brings back memories of childhood, this hiding and lying and crying. They’re both hurting, and Scott knows full well how stubborn his counterpart is. He pulls out the trump card: “I’m your brother.” Which he now realizes means absolutely nothing.

Like a miracle, the door still opens – which is to say, Shane mutters “It’s not locked.”

 _Manners_ , Scott thinks bemusedly. They were raised to never lock doors unnecessarily. He affords Shane that same civility in return and waits a couple seconds so his brother can compose himself.

Sure enough, Shane is on the floor. He’s curled up, made small, between the bathtub and the sink. They’re the exact same height, but Scott now towers over his brother. It makes him feel like a bully. He crouches down to be at Shane’s level, and his brother promptly turns his face away from him. Shane stares in the direction of Ma’s lavender bath salt.

He’s breathing heavily, faster with each passing second, and Scott feels unease creep in. Anxiety like _this_ was more Shane’s forte: he locked it all up inside his chest, while Scott would lash out and maybe go punch a tree or something. The result is that he has no clue how to deal with panic attacks.

Shane’s hyperventilating by now, his tear-tracked face scrunched up, still steadfastly looking off into the distance. Scott is walking on eggshells here: should he back off, or get closer? Hold his hand? Eye contact? He has no idea. In his chest, his heartbeat is ratcheting up to match Shane.

He doesn’t get a re-do – this _is_ his second chance.

Scott stares straight into Shane’s ear, and says nothing. He feels so helpless. Shane tucks his face down to hide it in his sleeve. This small, vulnerable action kickstarts something in him. Maybe it’s big-brother instinct; maybe it’s basic humanity. But he is filled with a rage that instantly takes him back to punching birch trees, Shane laughing at his teenage stupidity. In those memories Shane is glowing, his eyes crinkled and happy. It’s the right way of things. How _dare_ Trevor disturb that.

Communication is the most important thing in a relationship. No more dancing around the topic, no more obfuscating – that’s the motherfucker that started all of these lies.

“Ryan told me – ” Scott begins, witnessing in real life the widening of Shane’s eyes, the way he stills completely. Deer in headlights. “ – that Trevor did this.”

 ** _Did what?_** hovers unseen over them, like a cartoon textbox. **_What did Trevor do to you, Shane?_**

But Shane’s wilting, and Scott sees it. His breathing is so labored: it echoes off the tiled walls, amplified like through a microphone. The weight is too much to bear.

“I won’t ask,” he says, and is rewarded with Shane’s gaze flicking quickly to him. Subtly, his breaths slow down. Scott could cry. “I just want to help you. Tell me how I can help you.”

Between shaking breaths, Shane gasps out, “Look away.”

And Scott does. He looks at the cabinets, the tile floor, the laundry basket; all the while hearing Shane’s breath slowly settle, seeing out of the corner of his eye Shane’s body untense. They sit on the tile together, and Scott waits for what must be five minutes. He pretends he doesn’t see the fine spasms wracking Shane as his body slowly drains of adrenaline.

When it quiets, it is almost too intimate to be awkward. Scott feels detached from his body, like he’s a balloon floating somewhere above, only connected by a thread. He’s looking at the doorsill when Shane speaks up, “I need to shower.”

Sure. Scott stands up, brushes his hands off on his thighs, and offers his brother a hand up by rote. It is left vacant. Shane sets his hands on the toilet and bathtub on either side of him and hoists himself up. As he unfolds, he turns massive again: there he is, Shane Madej, taller than the bathroom mirror cabinet. To compensate, Scott has to back away a couple steps. The bathroom is hardly big enough for one giant, let alone two, so he leaves to get some clothes.

“I’ll get some clothes,” he offers, halfway out the door.

Shane stands awkwardly, waiting for him to leave so he can undress. “Don’t – look in my suitcase,” he manages haltingly.

“I’ll get your old clothes from your closet,” Scott replies smoothly. Then he’s out in the hallway again. It feels like he’s stepped through to another world. He heads down the darkened hallway, to Shane’s old room.

A lot of it is the same: Shane didn’t bring stuff like his bed or desk when he moved out. The outcome is a bare-bones teenager’s room. The walls are still dark blue, and there’s an empty shelf above the bed. He supposes his parents saw no point in renovating a guest room. The guest futon is on the ground, next to Shane’s bed. 

Trevor has stepped foot in this room – he saw it when Shane introduced him to his parents.

Scott opens the wardrobe and rifles through it. There are only a couple shirts left. He settles on a t-shirt with some faded company logo. He finds a pair of sweatpants that will probably do: Shane hit his growth spurt early, and has been the same size for a long time.

They were together for… about three years, Scott thinks as he walks out into the hallway. He can hear the shower running. He goes downstairs, taking the steps slowly.

When they broke up, everyone was shocked.

‘ _Are you sure?_ ’ their mother had said. She looked devastated. ‘ _But you were so good together._ ’ Their father said nothing, just looked at Shane with a frown on his face. ‘ _I’ve never seen you as happy as he made you,_ ’ she said, and Scott –

nodded.

Presently, Scott goes into the living room to see Ryan on the couch, absently scrolling on his phone while biting his nails anxiously. He looks up, and words immediately spill out. “Is he – how is he? I heard the shower.”

Putting the clothes down on an armchair, Scott says, “He’s taking a shower. He – had a panic attack. I – ” _don’t know what Trevor did to him. I know **I** hurt him. _

“Hey,” Ryan soothes, so it must be showing on his face. “It’s alright. You did your best, it’s not your fault–”

“It is,” Scott says out loud. “It – oh my god,” he laughs shakily. “Ryan.”

Said man looks a bit alarmed. “Scott…”

“After they broke up,” he says numbly, “mom still invited him for Thanksgiving.” His body feels like it’s falling, slow and sticky like tar. “She wouldn’t give it a break. We all – we all kept pushing for them to make up, because they were so – ”

_‘What a shame,’ she sighed. ‘That right there was the best man he was ever gonna get. There aren’t countless – gay men in Illinois, Scott. And he was so kind.’_

“He was such a good actor,” Scott admits quietly.

* * *

One thousand, five hundred and seventy-three days before the break-up, Shane’s coming-out sparks the biggest fight Scott’s ever seen. Their mother flips between seething rage and simpering crocodile tears, and Scott’s perspective on everything changes that day.

One thousand and fifteen days before the break-up, Shane quietly confesses he’s gotten his first boyfriend. Scott turns around in the empty kitchen and smiles at him.

Nine hundred and forty-six days before the break-up, Scott meets Trevor for the first time. He’s handsome, tall (almost as tall as Shane!), with a nice smile. He looks at Shane like the sun shines out of his ass.

Six hundred and thirty-five days before the break-up, Shane brings Trevor over to meet the parents. It’s stilted, but Trevor is so charming Sherry gives her seal of approval before dessert. Shane _shines_.

Five hundred and one days before the break-up, Sherry asks Shane what he thinks about adoption.

Four hundred and twenty-four days before the break-up, Scott gets a call from Shane at 00:31 AM. Shane’s crying because of some sad movie he saw, and the stress from his job. He apologizes for waking Scott and hangs up.

Three hundred and forty days before the break-up, Shane comes over for a movie night. He complains about a sore throat the entire time, even though it’s summer.

Two days before the break-up, Scott’s roommate moves out.

* * *

The shower turns off upstairs, and Scott stands up. Ryan’s looking up at him, numb. “She invited him for Thanksgiving?” he breathes. “His _ex_?”

Scott gathers up the clothes from the armchair.

“What did Shane do?” Ryan asks.

“He didn’t come,” Scott answers, and goes upstairs.

He knocks on the bathroom door, and then steps inside. And he sees – dark bruises, littering every inch of Shane’s arms – clusters of burst blood vessels along the back of his arms – scratches on his forearms – before Shane quickly spins around to face him and covers his body with a towel.

A pause.

“Do you want me to go get a long-sleeves instead?” Scott asks.

He looks into his brother’s face instead of staring at his mottled arms, so he sees it crumple. Inside him, he feels something crumple too.

“She invited him for Thanksgiving. And we didn’t stop her,” Scott confesses. “We all just – let it happen. And we never asked you. And I never noticed.” He knows that going forward, he will be caught off-guard by old memories that suddenly click into place: ‘ _oh.’_

“I’m so sorry, Shane. I–”

And Shane’s still covering his arms.

“I should have knocked. I’m sorry.” Scott puts the clothes on the sink, but still asks, “Long-sleeves?”

Shane nods, and so he goes and gets them. When he gets back, Shane has put on the sweatpants – they fit him fine – and still has the towel wrapped around his shoulders.

Leaving him to it, Scott goes downstairs again.

Ryan’s in the kitchen now. Scott goes up to him, and asks numbly, “Does Shane have a boyfriend.” He can hear that it doesn’t come out right; so can Ryan, judging by how cautiously he puts down his glass of water.

“Uh – why?”

Scott supposes he deserves the mistrust. “He– He had–” It’s a gross violation of privacy. “I’m – worried about him.”

Ryan’s stare is guarded. His eyes look like dull beach pebbles. “Yeah. Me too.” For a moment silence reigns, and then he snaps back into it. “Yeah, he – there’s no boyfriend. He’s single,” Ryan laughs thinly.

Scott establishes three facts inside of his own head:

  1. _Alright._


  1. _All that – the range of shades, the different methods, the **extent** of it all – couldn’t have been done in one night._


  1. _He did this to himself._



Shane tumbles into the kitchen loose-limbed, the set of his shoulders relaxed. He ambles over to the kettle and fills it with fresh water. Accordingly, they shuffle a step over to make room for him. He’s wearing the button-up with the t-shirt underneath, as well as some kind of armor, clearly, based on the way he’s acting. It’s like they didn’t just see him unraveling at the seams. Scott’s sure neither him nor Ryan are very discreet in their staring, but they’re trying.

“Um,” Ryan says eloquently. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Shane says easily, turning around to face them. There’s nothing in his face that gives him away. _God, he’s good_ , Scott thinks. It’s almost enough to trick him, in spite of the way Shane’s gripping his own forearms as his arms cross. The fabric twists under his hands.

“You hungry?” Scott asks them both. “We could make a small snack before, uh–” _Good one._

Something slips in Shane’s façade at the mention of his mother. Scott can’t quite pinpoint what, but there’s something. “Nah,” Shane remarks, over Ryan opening his mouth to speak. “I’m not hungry,” he corrects, looking at his friend. “Might, uh, go upstairs and take a nap.” With that said, he takes his leave.

Before he can retreat, Scott calls out to him, walking over to the hallway. Shane joins him, saying very clearly with his eyebrows: _What_.

Scott wishes he knew, but with every question his mind conjures, he immediately knows the answer he’ll receive. _How are you? Fine. Can we talk more? I’m tired. Can I hug you? No._ Looking at Shane casually leaning against the wood paneling, he reassures himself that he’s got 3 more days in Schaumburg with him. After that… it’s only an hour drive between their apartments. So, first things first: 

“What do I say to her? Because I – ” _am not as good a liar as you,_ “ – can’t lie to her. I’m not good at that,” he finishes after a slightly too long pause.

His brother’s face blanks. “She knows,” he mutters.

“She–” Scott blinks. “What do you mean she _knows_?”

* * *

“Can’t you just give it a break,” Shane says tiredly. “I– We’re _not_ going to get back together.”

His mom just stares at him, disappointed. In the late evening, dishtowel in hand, it hits a little harder. “Shane, he was great. Everyone _loved_ him, he–”

“Well _I_ didn’t love him,” Shane barks more harshly than he means to.

Rolling her eyes, Sherry says, “You _did_ , Shane. You were head over heels for that man. I mean, we all thought you were going to _marry_.”

There’s a silence.

“Be honest with me,” she begins gently as she walks closer and sits at the chair next to him. “I – I know it’s hard to be… _different_.” She puts her hand on his arm. The mood is suddenly changed: it feels sticky-slow, like treacle.

“Is it… Could it maybe be that you just – wanted something different? Something more conventional?” Her voice is quiet and kind.

Shane – doesn’t quite understand what’s happening right now. She can’t seriously mean –

“I know you _used_ to like girls, Shane. I was there for high school,” she laughs. “And I don’t think anyone would blame you if–”

“Are you– _Mom,_ ” he asserts and stares at her. “I’m still gay. It’s not like I’m gonna have one boyfriend and just – _give up_!”

She sighs like he’s being difficult. “Well how many boyfriends are you going to drag under my roof, then? Do you want to try every gay man in Illinois before you decide? I’m trying to be supportive here, Shane, but you’re not exactly making it easy for me.”

It’s like they’re having two different conversations. The problem isn’t the gay, it’s which _man_. 

“Trevor was–” It comes out choked, and Shane clears his throat. “He wasn’t kind, ma. I know he – he seemed it, but he would get _mad_ ,” he confesses just to get her to shut up. She keeps _staring_ at him and his soul feels exposed. He wishes he could take it back; he wishes he could crawl into a hole and hide. “He would – he wasn’t kind.”

His mother rolls her eyes at him. “Shane, you can’t date a man and then expect him to act like a woman,” she snaps. Shane’s stomach drops. “You said you two were arguing, take some responsibility! Don’t blame everything on him – I know firsthand how difficult you can be sometimes, so I don’t expect him to be a saint.”

“Ma,” Shane whispers even though his stomach is threatening to revolt. She doesn’t understand, clearly. “He wouldn’t– He would _hit_ me–”

“Men _do_ that, Shane! It is _your_ responsibility in a relationship to work through that. Relationships take work, and – and devotion, Shane! You have to put in the effort,” She scoffs and gets up to put away the dishes. Shane is left sitting alone at the dinner table, feeling like he’s lost some part of him he wasn’t even aware he had.

“I wish you wouldn’t be so selfish – you _know_ he hasn’t got any family here. He’s coming to Thanksgiving and that’s final. Maybe you two can fix what you had.”

* * *

Shane pushes off the wall and just – walks away. Like he didn’t just blue-screen Scott’s worldview. “I’m gonna take a nap,” he remarks in the silence. The implication is clear: _You tell her whatever you want to. I don’t care._

Scott would like to think he knows Shane better than that.

So he lets his brother go, and treks back into the kitchen. At the sight of him, Ryan straightens up. “So, uh. He probably doesn’t want me up there right now.” He puts his hands in his back pockets. “Did – you wanna make something?”

The entire house is silent.

Some sandwiches and absent small talk later, the car pulls up outside. Scott and Ryan both turn to the entryway. The door rattles and swings open to announce Sherry and Mark laden with heavy bags. Automatically, Scott steps up and takes several bags from his mother. “Nice trip?” he asks stiffly.

A very nice trip, it turns out. Sherry can’t stop gushing about how many pumpkins there were, and she _bought some nice treats for you boys, you’ll see after dinner_. There’s a tiny, puckered white gourd that she insists on showing everyone at least twice.

It’s on her second _isn’t-it-cute_ , this time to an apathetic Ryan, that she notices one of her sons is missing. “Where’s Shane?”

“Uh,” Scott stalls. _Here goes nothing_. “He’s not feeling well. He’s taking a nap upstairs.”

Putting down the damn gourd, Sherry laughs sardonically. “Is his hometown that embarrassing to him?”

It’s clearly a rhetorical question, yet she looks to Scott for a response. (Internally, he answers _gee, wonder why_.)

“Shane!” she yells up the stairs. “Get down here.”

She goes back to putting produce away in the fridge. Neither Ryan nor Scott break the silence, and Mark’s vanished. Eventually Shane comes thumping down the stairs. His head’s tilted down, but he looks up to meet Scott’s gaze.

Scott shakes his head at him.

“Yeah?” Shane asks his mom, belatedly.

Sherry looks him over with a critical eye, then bustles over to inflict more _look-at-this-gourd_ on him. Her son stands hunched over in the doorway.

“Wow,” Shane responds dutifully. His eyes are puffy like he’s just taken a nap. “It’s so small.”

Sherry hums like she’s indulging him. “I was thinking of putting it on the coffee table,” she says, pulling out a big ceramic pot. Three gourds are laying out on the counter. “We’re having butternut squash soup for dinner – your favorite,” she beams at Shane.

Scott and Ryan trade a meaningful glance. Scott has to appreciate how expressive Ryan is – his face shows a very clear ‘ _say what now?’_

“Mmm,” Shane says out loud. “Great.”

Scott’s beginning to wonder how much of Shane’s Midwestern apathy is deliberate. He had thought it was just the age catching up with Shane, turning down the dial on that goofy teenage glee, but. A personality made up of constant dead-pan delivery comes in awfully handy sometimes.

He hates this. He hates having to fucking question every little thing his brother does or says, when he’s spent the last decade thinking everything’s coming up roses. Shane moved away from his nagging, conservative family to pursue a career in LA – an easy, simple narrative. Now it’s all square peg in round hole.

Scott wants to just sweep his brother up in a big shawl or something, hug him until his pains melt away. But that’s not how that works. The best way he can take care of Shane is breaking away from the lie he’s been living for nine years, not letting Shane pull the wool over his eyes.

He wants to be there for his brother, helping him when he needs it. He wants to be trustworthy.

It’s a cruel irony that this vigilance feels like he’s forcefully tearing away Shane’s façade, battering down his front door. Double-guessing everything his brother does feels so underhanded. Scott feels like a supervisor, hovering over his shoulder and breathing down his neck.

Casting a glance to the shorter man leaning against the counter, he hopes Ryan can see Shane clearer than Scott does. He hopes Shane confides in Ryan – well, clearly he does. And for good reason: Scott does watch his brother’s videos, and he’s never seen Shane as exuberant as he is around Ryan. It’s like they’ve been best friends since elementary.

“Go on, get,” their mother shoos. “Out of my kitchen.”

* * *

After dinner – butternut squash soup is good, sure, but he doubts it’s anyone’s _favorite_ – Sherry refuses to let Ryan help clear the table. She doesn’t want him to do the dishes, either: “Out,” she says, and naturally Shane follows.

Scott is therefore standing by the sink, rinsing off bowls before putting them in the dishwasher. His father’s still at the table, finishing off the last of the food so nothing goes to waste.

Now the cutlery. Scott puts it all systematically in the top rack, distantly hearing his parents converse about something or other. Pleasant small talk.

It builds in his chest: these things always do. They fester inside his ribcage and then creep upwards, to his throat and behind his face. It’s a prickling, warm feeling. Like itchy wool.

“Ma,” Scott says, and immediately blanks on what he was going to say. He stares his own mother in the face. Brevity is the soul of wit, he recalls: “You – knew Trevor was…”

It’s too loud a word, the evening before Thanksgiving. The weird tension in the room reminds Scott of that fateful day nine years ago when Shane came out. This time he won’t stand quietly in the shadows, however. “And you still invited him?”

His mother straightens up. “What are you talking about, Scott?” It’s said in the tone one would use for a child, after a long day at work.

“Today Shane saw Trevor in town,” Scott languidly explains. “And some things came out.”

Her hand is on her hip, her face shadowed – but she doesn’t look scared. It’s her kitchen, her home, on a quiet evening. Nothing is amiss, in her mind. Why would it be? Most damning: in her opinion, she hasn’t done anything wrong.

“What came out, Scott?” Sherry enunciates clearly, impatient.

“How Trevor was abusive. And how you knew.”

It’s a stare-off – Scott is so keyed up he’s almost trembling with it, while she’s steady as a rock. They’re waiting each other out: time stretches out like taffy. Any patience she has, her son has also inherited.

The ball’s in her court. Either it’s gotten quieter, or the clock’s ticking louder. Scott’s hands clench on the counter.

“All I knew,” she lays out slowly, “is that they were arguing. A lot can happen in situations like that, Scott. But he never said Trevor was abusive to him.”

 _Yeah, no, he didn’t tell me that either_ , Scott thinks. _In so many words._ _But some things can be fucking inferred_.

Scott would like to one-up her: _hah, I got you_ , trap her in her own words. But he’s running blind. Shane’s told him _nothing_.

It resonates in his mind again: **_What did Trevor do to you, Shane?_**

It hurts him that he’s reduced to asking her, begging for scraps of information from the woman who apparently knew and did _nothing_.

Scott bites out: “What specifically did he say to you, Ma.”

“Well,” his mother says casually, crossing her arms, like it’s no skin off her back. “He said that tempers ran high, and they would sometimes get violent with each other–”

They’re interrupted by a plate clanging loudly behind them.

Mark looks incensed. “Does anyone ever tell me anything in this fucking house?”

“Mark,” Sherry scolds, like they’re still six years old and eagerly pick up every swear within earshot. She sounds scandalized.

“You didn’t think to mention to me that Trevor was – abusive?” Mark confirms, looking to Scott, and that feels _good_. He sees his chance.

“That’s what they told me,” he supplies, crossing his arms and leaning back against the sink.

Sherry smiles, small and bitter. “ _They?_ ”

“They both saw Trevor. When they came back–”

“Ryan told you,” his mother states definitely, sure as anything.

Scott realizes belatedly that Sherry has one advantage: she raised Shane, center-stage, and she _knows_ her son. Shane is a Midwesterner down to the fucking bones. He would never just say it like that, straight out, not like… Ryan would.

“And?” Scott protests ineffectually. “Yeah, Ryan said it _explicitly_ , but it was obvious–”

His mother lets out a sweet, sympathetic laugh. “I see what’s happened here. Ryan saw something, and got a little – he overreacted. And you, being a good brother, are worried–”

“ _Ma_ ,” Scott interrupts harshly. “That’s not what – I’m not going to _tell_ you, because that would be a gross invasion of privacy, but–”

“Did Shane say to you that Trevor was abusive,” Sherry interrupts clinically. She says it neutrally, like it’s routine: like she’s scanning his passport at customs, asking ‘ _Why are you visiting?’_

Mark’s still standing at the table, looking between the two of them. He is uncertain. The ball is in Scott’s court now. Ah – _there’s_ the trump card he had forgotten about:

She raised Scott too.

 _“Why can’t I come?” he protested._

_“Because, Scott,” Lindsay sighed, turning around, “you’re a snitch. You tell your mom **everything**.” _

“Shane didn’t explicitly tell me in words that Trevor abused him,” Scott grinds through gritted teeth. “But–”

“I think it’s rude that you’re speaking for him,” Sherry says clearly, knowing full well Shane would confess over _his dead body_ , “Instead of just asking him. How about that? We’ll ask him.”

“No,” Scott says reflexively. “ _No_. Ma, you’re – you can’t just _ask_ him about his abusive ex–”

“We don’t know he was abusive,” Sherry quickly corrects. “And why not? I think we’ve all done enough speaking on his behalf.”

And then she walks towards the stairs.

“Ma,” Scott barks, grabbing her arm. She shrugs him off, continues. Scott is left with no choice but to race after her, and behind him Mark slowly walks around the table and follows.

She’s fast when she’s determined: she’s up the stairs and down the hallway before Scott catches up to her. “Ma,” he protests again, loudly.

She firmly grasps the handle and swings the door wide open.

Inside, Ryan’s sitting on the bed, while Shane’s on the floor, leant against the wall. It means Shane’s facing the door, and now looking directly up into his mother’s face. Ryan stares as well, the faint trace of a smile dropping quickly from his face. They were clearly talking before they heard Scott cry out behind the door.

For a moment, nothing happens. It is blissfully still – an impasse.

“Hey,” Sherry says sweetly. “We heard there’s something you want to tell us, Shane?”

Scott’s stomach _roils_ , and he knows he will remember this moment forever: the look on Shane’s face, like a cornered animal. His face is stony and yet he is so clearly _terrified_.

Ryan’s eyes flick to Scott: _What have you done?_

Scott’s father is breathing heavily behind him, leaning on the doorframe. He can’t see his mother’s face: he imagines it is horrid.

“What do you mean,” Shane says placidly. He’s frozen still.

“Was Trevor an abusive boyfriend, Shane?” she enunciates clearly.

There’s a silence. In this silence, Scott can see the gears turning in his brother’s head. Shane’s eyes flick over the three figures standing in the doorway above him: Sherry, Scott, Mark. He steadfastly does _not_ look at Ryan.

His jaw grinds and he grips his shirt sleeves a little tighter. _What are you waiting for?_ Scott begs. _Every person in this room knows it’s true._ He can’t believe his mother has been lying for so long, unchecked. Scott doesn’t know that he’ll able to stop himself from sweeping Shane up into a hug when he exposes her deceit.

Shane swallows slowly.

“No,” he says lightly, tilting his head up to look his mother in the eye. “Of course not.”

“Of course not,” Sherry repeats happily.

Scott –

Ryan’s thinking the same thing. They exchange a look: _What_ , it clearly says, _the fuck?_

Scott looks to his brother. Shane won’t meet his eye. And then Sherry closes the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder: Shane’s been playing this game for a long time. Their plane tickets are on the 28th.
> 
> **NOTES:**
> 
>   * Checkers Pancake House is [real](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Checkers+Pancake+House/@42.005063,-88.0939083,18z/data=!4m19!1m13!4m12!1m6!1m2!1s0x880fa8de61f39659:0x39abd583522f1aae!2sSchaumburg+High+School!2m2!1d-88.1070531!2d42.0269809!1m3!2m2!1d-88.0939126!2d42.005144!3e2!3m4!1s0x880fa93000000001:0x26849dbfebe37ef6!8m2!3d42.00505!4d-88.0936749) and a 2.2 mile, 45 minute walk away from Schaumburg High School. They take a small detour, though.
>   * All the specific stories and anecdotes listed are real, [canon](https://buzzfeed-unsolved.fandom.com/wiki/Shane_Madej) stories Shane’s told.
>   * The gift shop, however, is completely fictional. Their route is in the suburbs, and a gift shop would be on one of the main streets, which is really out of their way. But the plot gets what the plot wants.
>   * They sit on a park bench in Campanelli Park, and push each other on swings in Cove Park.
>   * This fic uses an alternate timeline – Shane moves out and comes out when he’s 23, he starts dating Trevor at 24, they break up at 27, he tells Ryan at 30, and this fic takes place when Shane’s 32.
> 



	2. hearth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY!!! Sorry about the wait – I wrote a little bit every day, trying to squeeze out some words whenever I could, but that just made my inspiration shrivel up and die :(( I'll try my best, but the next chapter will probably take a while too tbh. 
> 
> You will realize shortly I have no idea what Ryan’s family dynamics are supposed to be like!! I have resolved this by fully bullshitting it. Apologies to all of South America. 
> 
> This chapter is significantly lighter, and basically just 9627 words of Ryan being pathetically infatuated with his best friend (ft. intrusive thoughts). It’s profoundly ridiculous, for flavor! Although this is fluff, the next chapter (the second half of their stay in Arcadia) will be a bit heavier. 
> 
> Slight content warning: It’s all in good fun, but there’s some slight sexualization/objectification of Shane, by Ryan’s aunts and family. What you would expect from any rom-com, basically. 
> 
> **Content warning** for food issues; briefly implied purging.

It’s been almost a month since the worst Thanksgiving Ryan’s ever had.

They’re back in California now, where it’s a tepid 63 degrees on average. It’s warmer _now_ , one week before Christmas, than Schaumburg was in late fall. His bomber jacket is perfectly adequate again, and he can wear sneakers without risking hypothermia. Thank god for small mercies – he’s beginning to get why they called it Los Angeles.

Ryan doesn’t understand how Shane survived growing up in Schaumburg. Speaking of:

Shane’s been quiet. He’s good at reading the room: Ryan spends all his days tense, still grappling with what happened on the 25th.

He’s not mad at _Shane_. He’s reasonably frustrated at – everything else.

He’s pissed at Sherry, who may not have pointed the gun on this disaster but certainly _pulled the fucking trigger_ , and goddamn Delta airlines, and Scott who went and blabbed to Shane’s overbearing mother because apparently _no one in the family knew_. 

There are so many questions spinning in his head: How could none of them have known? How did Shane manage to keep it secret for so long? Why did he tell _Ryan_ , if he didn’t even trust his own brother with it?

That entire trip, that Hallmark-movie-turned-soap-opera, feels like a foreign film he watched without subtitles. He was a voyeur, peeking behind the curtain, into their family secrets. It means he’s missing about 75% of the underlying subtext, and 100% of the backstory.

Here’s what he _knows_ :

  * Trevor **was** abusive
  * Scott (at least briefly) felt bad. He had muttered something about ‘meeting up to talk’ when they got back to LA, but so far there’s been radio silence.
  * Sherry _would_ feel bad, if only she could pull her head out of the clouds and look at her goddamn son for once.



Ryan remembers the look on Shane’s face when his family confronted him. It instantly brought him back to being yelled at as a kid; to that awful sinking feeling in his stomach when he had forgotten to do his homework.

In all fairness, Shane had pulled him aside afterwards and explained the logic behind it: that they were staying there for another three days, and that he ‘knows when to pick his battles’. “ _I couldn’t have made it through Thanksgiving dinner with them all staring at me the entire time._ ” Ryan can understand the shock of having your secret outed like that.

It doesn’t make the moment better. The deafening radio static that filled Ryan’s head as he heard Shane shrug off, “ _No, of course not_ ,” like he’d never confessed to Ryan on a darkened couch after too many beers that he moved out to LA to escape an abusive relationship: _“Start over, clean slate, y’know?”_. Like Shane didn’t storm out of a diner, go non-verbal, just at the _sight_ of his abuser.

Most of it feels like a fog – Ryan can’t comprehend how they got through Thanksgiving, and the days after it, but they somehow did. He chalks it up to Shane’s mother, who was a savant at ignoring any tension she didn’t want to feel. She talked enough for all of them.

And Shane, of course, who could win every Oscar from here to infinity if only people knew. He was right there alongside his mother, smiling, nodding, playing along. The whole act filled Ryan with a nauseating jittery feeling: like sneaking out as a teenager, unsure if you’ve been overheard.

The feeling lingers still – he feels sick, and then angry, and then scared. Like a horrid merry-go-round of the five stages of grief.

Maybe it shows; maybe Shane just knows him. Either way, Ryan’s best friend has been surprisingly lenient, letting them take things at Ryan’s pace. The days roll by; Shane never brings it up. He hasn’t said a word.

Ryan put this to the test yesterday, parsing out the boundaries of Shane’s complacency:

“Come with me to Arcadia for Christmas?” Ryan– well, demanded, really. He had been hyping himself up in the bathroom for fifteen minutes before this. He must have lost all sense of tact somewhere along the way.

Shane had calmly sipped his tea, looking at Ryan steadily over the rim of his mug. “Sure,” he announced, and smacked his lips. He’d spent about 2.3 seconds considering it.

“O–kay,” Ryan fumbled. Shane always managed to catch him off guard in some way. “I, uh – I’m going there the 24th, uh – in the morning. And then staying until the 28th,” he timidly explained. “But you can drive back earlier, if you want – I’m not making you stay–”

“Okay,” Shane had interrupted serenely, turning back to his computer screen.

Ryan couldn’t get a read on him at all, anymore. So he had simply opened up his calendar and marked the days – _Christmas w/ Shane, Arcadia_. _Dec 24 – Dec 28_.

Presently, Ryan looks at that same red banner on his screen. It’s the 19th today. He sneaks a glance at his deskmate: unstyled brown hair, leaning his chin on his hand, staring blankly at the screen. He’s wearing a dark blue shirt that hugs his arms nicely.

_w/ Shane_ , that Hallmark devil on his shoulder crows. In his mind, every single extended family member, living or dead, joins in on the chorus: _Shaaane_.

Pathetic.

* * *

It’s _too_ easy.

Ryan reaches out – he’s always the one initiating, nowadays – the night before and texts Shane _‘9 ok?’_. In response he gets a thumbs-up emoji. Nothing else.

He pulls up outside Shane’s apartment at 8:58 to see him already standing outside, duffle bag in hand. Before he knows it Shane’s in the passenger seat, buckling up, and then they’re going 75 mph down San Bernadino.

Ryan Bergara is a dog with a bone. “You, uh,” he starts, clenching his clammy hands on the steering wheel, “don’t have to stay until the 28th if you don’t want to. I mean – we’re happy to have you, dude, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to–”

Shane puts him out of his misery. “It’s fine, dude. You think I’m gonna complain about being fed good food until I burst?” It’s in so blasé a tone you wouldn’t know he’s sitting in Ryan’s car, headed to stay with _Ryan’s_ family. (Like _he’s_ doing Ryan a favor, which… isn’t untrue.) Ryan’s unhelpful brain conjures an image of Shane dressed like _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ , sunglasses and pearl necklace and all.

_‘It’s one banana, Michael’_ , Shaudrey-Mapburn-in-Ryan’s-head drawls, _‘how much could it cost? Ten dollars?’_

This is a _bad_ thing to be thinking about when he’s supposed to be paying attention to the road. Ryan shakes his head, adjusts his grip on the steering wheel. Mentally sprays his treacherous imagination with a spray bottle of water.

“I’ll eat you out of house and home,” Shane continues, blissfully unaware. “I’m a pest, Ryan, you can’t get rid of me. You’ll have to shove me out the door when you get tired of me.”

That… came out less jokingly than was probably intended. Ryan shoots Shane a wary glance, but the man’s side profile reveals nothing.

Ryan doesn’t quite know how to show Shane that he is loved and cherished (his brain coughs loudly in his ear), and they’re not exactly close right now. He can’t swan up like ‘ _hey, I value your friendship and think you’re real swell, big guy’_. Besides, Ryan doesn’t think he’ll be able to accurately convey how much that tall beanpole of a man means to him. He can try, though:

“Uh,” he begins, and almost blurts out something he _definitely does not mean to say out loud_. Shane looks questioningly at him. Ryan is incredibly occupied with keeping his eyes on the road.

“I wouldn’t push you out the door,” he jokes lamely. “If anything I’d–” Do _not_ say ‘ _chain you there so you couldn’t leave_ ’, Ryan Steven Bergara, what is _wrong_ with you, “… My mom would try to adopt you,” he finishes belatedly.

Shane stares at him. That’s fair. He’s probably wondering what serial killer he just got in a car with.

The car slows and they pull up to a flat, one-story beige house. A tree casts dappled shade across the front yard, and a pinecone wreath hangs on the front door. Ryan parks his car at the very top of the driveway, to make room for the three cars that will have to park there later.

Eagerly, he unbuckles and jumps out, like he can run away from this conversation. He barely pauses to grab his own duffle bag, just rips the door open as fast as he can. When Shane follows suit, opening the car door and climbing out, it almost feels like he’s doing it out of spite.

Ryan hopes no one is watching and just walks straight over the lawn. He rings the doorbell, feeling Shane’s tall-ass presence at his back, trying not to think about how rude he’s being to his guest right now. It’s just that Ryan knows for certain if he turns around right now, he’ll melt into a puddle and never recover. He almost told the man he _loved_ him, for fuck’s sake. The last thing he needs is eye contact.

Linda Bergara opens the door, squints at her son fidgeting like he’s pissed his pants, then brightens when she sees Shane. “Shane!” she exclaims and practically yanks Ryan out of the way. “Come inside!”

Shane stoops reflexively when he crosses the threshold, and then unfolds to take in his surroundings. It’s a newer house than his own parents’, but also more cluttered. There are family photos on every wall (and an unsurprising, when you consider Ryan, number of crosses). Two women appear in the kitchen doorway, watching them enter. They’re whispering to each other, smiling.

“Sorry it’s so crowded, it’s our turn to host,” Linda explains graciously, beaming up at Shane. Her head, about the height of Shane’s armpit, is tilted up at a 40° angle to meet his eyes. “Besides, we wouldn’t make you boys drive all the way down to San Jose.”

Ryan’s standing where he was pushed, by the umbrella vase, feeling distinctly invisible. Ryan’s mother tucks her hair behind her ear. “You just call me Linda, sweetheart, and – ” she turns to the two women in the doorway, “ _that’s_ Tía Viktoria and Tía Patricia. Everyone else is in the living room.”

Tía, Ryan notes. Like Shane’s family now. Linda casts Ryan a sly glance.

Shane, meanwhile, nods awkwardly at the two aunts. He’s clutching his duffle bag like his life depends on it. “Nice to meet you,” he tells them, a little lost.

Linda snaps back into it. “Yes, this is Shane, Ryan’s friend–”

“We _know_ , Linda,” Tía Viktoria interrupts. Then, to prove she can be just as obnoxious as her sister, she smiles: “Ryan told us too.” It sits heavy with implied subtext, and both aunts look directly at Ryan, who was beginning to think he’d become one with the wall.

He distracts them by holding up his duffle bag. “Can we put our stuff away, please?” Tía Patricia sees right through his act, by the way her eyes crinkle fondly. Having two kids apparently imbues mothers with omniscience. Tía Viktoria, ever single, just quietly scoffs at him, like she really was planning to throw down over Ryan’s crush right here in the foyer. Ryan doesn’t want to know what Shane is thinking about all this.

Mom to the rescue: she shows them to Ryan’s bedroom upstairs, wall-to-wall with the tiny guest room. The guest room sits empty, currently: Jake hasn’t arrived yet. “He’ll be here before noon,” Linda says, with a firmness that implies _consequences_ for Jake if he isn’t. “Your Tía Patricia and Tío Robert are staying at a hotel,” she explains, “and Ben and Julia too.”

Linda likely feels bad that she can’t room everyone on the premises. Bigger family events were usually at Ben and Julia’s, a grand McMansion unrestrained by LA housing prices. They had downsized this Christmas, meeting up in Arcadia, after Ryan had asked if he could bring Shane along.

(“Shane,” his mother had said, staring at him through her phone screen. “ _Shane_. For Christmas?”)

In the biggest wingman-move Ryan had ever seen, everyone in the family had agreed without the usual thirty minutes of petty bickering. Probably Tía Viktoria had strongarmed everyone into acquiescing: for being the cool, single whiskey aunt, she sure was a sucker for love stories.

Ryan’s terrible, _terrible_ brain presents a motion picture – Tía Viktoria, wearing a beret and artfully smoking a cigarette, rasping to him, ‘On god we gon get you some dick, bro _._ ’

Ryan shakes his head like an Etch-a-Sketch to remove that intrusive thought, and desperately tries to stop zoning out because _these are the dire consequences_.

Shane wanders over to the air mattress on the floor, sitting down on it. Ryan and his mom simultaneously cry out in protest: “No, sweetie, don’t sleep on that,” Linda rushes. “You’re taking the bed!”

Concurrently, Ryan says, “Dude, _I_ took the bed last time. You can’t sleep on the floor both times.” (Also, Ryan thinks air mattresses are kinda neat. Awful for his ever-aging back, sure, but an occasional indulgence won’t kill him. Hopefully.)

With all the grace befitting a Victorian dowager, Shane unfolds and moves to the bed. “You’ve got me in your bed at last, Bergara,” he for some reason jokes, and Ryan’s mom chokes on a laugh and quickly turns around.

“I’ll leave you two to unpack,” she says as she makes a hurried exit, leaving Ryan and Shane alone.

“…Dude, she probably thought you were talking to her,” Ryan interjects too late, and he sees Shane’s eyes crinkle into half-moons as he smiles a secret smile.

“Nah, dude,” Shane responds, talkative at last now that they’re in private. “You’re the only Bergara for me.”

Ryan’s brain stalls, like a car out of fuel, coughing and spluttering to a halt. “Uh,” Ryan says, to fill his treacherous mouth. Shane’s not even looking at him, flopped back on the bed, long limbs spread-eagle.

Ryan does what he does best: flees with his tail between his legs, like the damn coward he is.

* * *

“Hey, Tía,” Ryan says a tad too eagerly, leaning against the kitchen island. “And, uh, mom.”

The three sisters look up and towards him: reluctantly, Linda stops her dramatized retelling of what her son’s crush had said. Ryan doesn’t actually speak Spanish, but he knows gossip when he hears it. It was probably supremely juicy. The sisters are crowded together, preparing for Christmas dinner.

“Can I help?” asks Ryan, trying not to sound desperate, like he would if he were fleeing an awkward situation with his (‘tall, kind, _funny_ ,’ the devil on his shoulder sighs) best friend.

“Do you need climbing gear? Some rope?” Tía Viktoria answers flatly, raising her eyebrows at him. “My, I don’t know how you do it, mijo, I thought you were _afraid_ of heights–”

Linda slaps her sister’s arm to shut her up. “Why aren’t you upstairs?”

Ryan tries to think of an excuse. At his silence, she hisses, “Ryan Steven Bergara, don’t tell me you _left our guest upstairs_ –”

“He can take care of himself! He probably wants some, some privacy, to be alone and chill–”

“I think you have a standing invitation there,” Tía Patricia demurs, because Ryan has no allies in this household. From the back, Tía Viktoria cackles.

He gives them a stern stare. “I’m just trying to be a nice son and offer some _help_ , on this merry Christmas Eve–”

“Didn’t you burn your kitchen down trying to make _eggs_?” his mother exclaims, unhelpfully.

“Wh–” Ryan stalls, looking around for a comeback. There, on the stove, is a large metal pot. He points victoriously: “You can’t burn _tamales_!”

“ _Yes you can_ ,” all three sisters chorus.

“God, I miss Obama,” Shane sighs, walking up behind Ryan in the doorway. “What’s up? Can we help with anything?”

Ryan clenches his eyes shut, very hard, and pretends he can’t feel the heat of Shane all along his back.

With relish, Tía Viktoria says, “Yes, you can.” Ryan opens his eyes: she’s doing an impressively passable impression of the evil queen from Snow White. “In fact–”

“Tamales,” Ryan blurts out, to stop her from ruining his life forever. “We’re making tamales.”

Linda hums dubiously: “Yes, later. Everyone makes them, together. But it’s ten a.m., sweetheart, we’re making lunch right now.”

Ryan tries not to sink through the floor. Linda turns to Shane: “If you wanted to help right now, you could grab that pot up there for the posole?”

She points towards a kitchen cabinet, high up. Tía Patricia abruptly turns away. Slowly, like a wary gazelle, Shane steps over to the cabinet. Ryan watches him go, wondering what the world’s come to. About three seconds later, he gets it.

Shane stops beneath the cabinet Linda selected. He looks back at them to confirm it’s the right one. The two sisters (Tía Patricia is very busy with the paper towels) nod eagerly.

Shane reaches up to open the cabinet. There it is: big silver pot, sitting smugly on the top shelf. He reaches up, stretching all the way out and going up on his toes to grasp it. As he steadily unfolds, like one of those heavy fold-out rulers, his shirt rides up ever so slightly.

The breath punches out of Ryan. _Oh_ , he thinks, trying to look respectfully, yet unable to tear his eyes away from that pale sliver of skin. Shane has a softness around his middle, but some of that beanpole-iness must carry over, because Ryan can clearly see the defined lines of his hipbones. It’s a study in contrast, and in Ryan’s self-restraint: his fingers twitch ever so slightly with the temptation to reach out and touch.

He’s aware his aunts are looking at him but can’t quite care enough to do anything about it. There’s a rushing in his ears, like when he listened to seashells as a kid. Most likely, that sound is the absence of his brain. Then the moment snaps – Shane has the pot, and steps back down; his shirt slides back into place.

“The lid, too, please,” Linda requests, and Ryan’s acutely aware of the pathetic way his body physically sways slightly closer, chin lifting, when Shane reaches up and his shirt lifts again.

He’s achingly bereft and yet consciously grateful when it comes to an end. Now he can retreat and lick his wounds, without the sight of Shane on display like the fucking cover of American Beauty and god is _that_ an image.

Ryan never should have come down to the kitchen: it was naïve to think he’d find solace here, among plotting, no-good relatives that want to see him go via no-blood-in-brain-it’s-all-in-my-dick syndrome. His brain provides Tía Viktoria again, beret and all: ‘ _It’s what he would have wanted_.’

Gingerly, Shane holds out the pot, which Linda gracefully accepts. “Well!” she says, clapping her hands. “That’s really all… unless you want to help chop vegetables?”

Tía Viktoria makes a sound like a dying horse and goes to help Patricia with the organizing of the paper towels.

“Sure!” Shane responds, over the sound of Ryan’s soul leaving his body.

Five minutes later, both Ryan and Shane are set up at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables. “I didn’t want it to be too heavy, because of dinner later,” Linda explains, puttering around in the fridge. “But we – ” she turns around, fixing Ryan with a gleeful gaze and a pointing finger. “We’re making buñuelos too,” she divulges with a smile. Ryan grins back at her.

“I’m not really sure what that is, but now I’m really excited,” Shane chimes, grabbing another bell pepper to chop. As Linda explains to him the age-old ritual of « _dough + oil + sugar = magic_ » _,_ Ryan steadfastly ignores Shane’s arms flexing as he chops vegetables. Shane uses his arm to press down on the back of the knife, leaning his weight on it. The process makes his button-up shirt draw tight across his shoulders, and the cotton fabric clings to his lean arms.

_Silk_ , Ryan imagines wistfully, which immediately snaps him back into chopping vegetables with high efficiency, like the Lord’s looking over his shoulder and judging his poor knifework. He _needs_ to stop mentally putting Shane in compromising situations: on some level, he’s still supposed to have morals.

He stares resolutely at his chopping board, dividing up a cauliflower head. They aren’t even, but that doesn’t matter since they’ll be blended into a soup later anyways. The cauliflower florets are very interesting, so he keeps examining them and them only. He distantly hears his mom and Shane talking, and then his mom walking away.

Shane leans down – far, he has to bend at his waist – and whispers in Ryan’s ear: “Dude, your aunt is weird.” It’s soft and breathy, tinged with amusement. As his warm breath brushes over Ryan’s ear, Ryan smells the pastilles Shane always keeps in his jacket: lemongrass and ginger, a scent Ryan now associates so deeply with Shane it gets him flustered just at the sense memory. (Like, theoretically, if he laid awake at night thinking about how Shane smelled – his pastilles, the soap he used… the cologne he rarely wore, for special occasions only.)

_Curse you, Pavlov_ , Ryan sends out into the void. Out loud, he weakly answers, “Yeah, hah. Sorry.”

Shane shakes his head amiably, bumping Ryan with his elbow. “Hey, it’s fine. This is better than any soap opera.”

“Soap opera, just because she’s Latina?” Ryan teases quietly. He can’t help himself; he simply has to push.

“No,” Shane says, rolling his eyes. “Because your aunts– All three of them, _stared_ at my shirt lifting up.” Then he goes back to chopping, mercifully, because Ryan has to devote his concentration to not choking on his spit and dying right there in the kitchen.

Just when he thinks he’s safe, his father strolls in. “Shane!” he exclaims, and then, “Ryan!”

Steven Bergara looks like Colonel Sanders, but Asian. He has salt-and-pepper hair, a circle beard, and a wide, welcoming smile. Every time Ryan drives past a KFC, it feels like his father’s staring down at him from the sign.

“Hi,” Shane smiles, friendly as anything. He looks like a happy, squishy little puppy. Ryan wants to pinch his cheeks so badly. Instead, he says “Hey, dad,” like a normal person.

Ryan’s father shakes Shane’s hand – still covered in bell pepper juice – and starts talking about the state of his lawn. Shane graciously nods along, like he’s delighted to hear about hydroponics and monstera cuttings. Every time he bobs his head, a strand of hair bounces on his forehead. His hair looks so fluffy.

Ryan directs his attention to the cutting board. _Down, boy_.

There’s the rumble of a car outside, which quiets the conversation between Ryan’s father and Shane. Ryan looks to the clock on the wall – 10:47. The doorknob rattles, and sure enough, Jake steps in. He’s wearing a baseball cap, with a duffle bag on his shoulder like it’s a backpack.

Jake greets his family with a smile and nod, closing the door behind him. Linda tuts and goes over to pinch his cheeks to death. “Hmph,” Ryan hears her say. “Did you forget how to cook at college?” Ryan thinks Jake looks the same as he did at the tailgate in August, actually.

He ponders this as he continues dissecting the cauliflower on his chopping board. Jake looks more like their father – Ryan can only assume Jake, too, will one day master the art of looking like the Colonel.

Said Colonel has turned away from his son’s arrival, going back to his conversation with Shane. The three most important things in the life of Ryan’s dad are his plants, his grill, and sweet potatoes. Ryan assumes he and his brother are somewhere around 5–7 on that list.

At this point Shane might be in the lead for favorite son, Ryan fondly thinks. Shane’s doing a remarkable job of buttering Steven up, smiling and _mhm_ -ing up a storm.

_Acting_ , Ryan reminds himself bleakly. _Shane’s acting_. Even this innocuous thing – who doesn’t act for their in-laws? – has such weight in the context of Shane’s life.

“Hey,” Jake whispers, leaning on the kitchen island. Ryan gives him the best smile he can muster and keeps showing the cauliflower who’s boss.

“You okay?” Jake asks, as his mother walks by and swipes the baseball cap off his head. He keeps trying to meet Ryan’s eyes. It’s a trait they have in common – a thin layer of frat bro attitude covering a deeply empathetic personality.

“Yeah,” Ryan whispers back, so as not to interrupt the riveting conversation between Steven and Shane. Jake follows his line of sight and does a little head-jerk towards Shane. Jake wiggles his eyebrows. _Nice catch_ , his face says.

Oblivious, Shane and Steven keep discussing botany. “I was thinking of planting some red maple,” Steven starts, and Jake mouths along to it behind his back. Their dad has been talking about planting that damn tree for fifteen years now. Ryan tries not to smile.

“You trying to make mash?” Tía Patricia exclaims, yanking the cutting board out from under Ryan’s hands. The cauliflower is no longer recognizable, now looking more like crushed styrofoam. Ryan shamefully puts his knife down.

* * *

Just as Ryan’s mother tells them to begin setting the table for Christmas dinner, Ben and Julia pull up outside the house, shortly followed by Robert and Josephine.

From the entryway, there’s a hollered “What’s shaking?”, so loud Shane recoils from where he’s placing napkins. They see Steven running into the entryway, and then the sounds of him tackling Uncle Ben. “Let’s rattle!” Steven yells in return, and from the kitchen Linda calls for them to ‘quiet down, boys’.

Ryan and Shane walk over to the entryway to witness Steven in a bro-hug with his brother, thumping him on the back. Uncle Ben is taller than Steven, and looks like the nicest man ever. He’s round and smiling peacefully. You wouldn’t think he was the one yelling up a storm earlier.

Behind the brotherly reunion is a short, brown-haired woman. She’s hoisting a baby carrier, with a brightly clad toddler at her heels. She looks really kind as well, like she bakes brownies every day and gives them out to all the kids in the neighborhood.

“Uncle Ben and Aunt Julia,” Ryan whispers for Shane’s benefit. Lots of hugs are now going around, so they have to step up and join the fray. Aunt Julia hands off the baby carrier to her husband and pulls Shane down into a very gentle hug. His hand gently comes up to hover over her back, so low it sits somewhere at the height of his abdomen. Ryan has to blink hard for a second as his eyes sting. Something in his chest lays curled up, like a withered leaf.

The front door is still open, so Robert closes it behind him. “Hey,” he announces, holding two bags. One, Ryan assumes, is for Josephine. She’s grown a _ton_ since Ryan last saw her, and almost looks like a real full-size person now.

He says as much: “You’ve grown a bunch!” Ryan announces to Josephine, in a silly voice he immediately regrets.

Josephine stills in the middle of taking off her jacket and looks at him like he’s _disturbed_. “So… have… you?” she awkwardly tries, and Ryan tries not to feel like she’s gut-punched him. So much for that gym membership. Tía Patricia lets out a laugh, and then tries to cover it up by reprimanding her daughter.

“Josephine, that’s rude,” she admonishes, and ignores Josephine when the girl tries to protest that Ryan literally said the exact same thing to her.

Tía Patricia hangs up her daughter´s puffer jacket and kisses her husband, who in turn decides to introduce himself to the new face first. “Hey,” he says, holding out his hand to Shane. “Robert. Ryan’s uncle-in-law.”

They shake on it. “Shane,” the taller man says with a slight chuckle. “Ryan’s …coworker?”

Thankfully, Robert has a solid poker face. Tía Patricia has no such reservations. She shoots Ryan a look that is simultaneously _yeesh_ and laden with innuendo. It pretty much just reads as ‘double-dog dare ya’.

Before Ryan can do something stupidly impulsive, Uncle Ben bear-hugs him. “Hey buddy!” he chuckles in Ryan’s ear, before tousling his hair like he’s a snot-nosed kid.

Ryan Bergara, 28, meekly laughs, “Hey, Uncle Ben.” They fist-bump.

Shane takes Uncle Ben’s tackle-hug more manfully, possibly bolstered by the fact that he’s tall enough that he can breathe during it. Uncle Ben even awards Shane with the (usually cousin-exclusive) fist-bump afterwards, which makes something in Ryan’s chest go soggy.

Next is Josephine, now freed from her mother’s clutches. “Hey,” she states bravely, and then seems a little lost.

“Hey,” Shane says mildly.

Josephine’s eyes flicker between the pair of them. The teenager opens her big mouth to reveal something rash, but Ryan mentally projects ‘ ** _don’t_** _’_ at her hard enough that she seems to get it. In the face of his narrow-eyed glare, she doesn’t really know what to do. She resorts to the fundamentals of teenage nature, instead: she walks away.

In her stead is Julia again, now cradling the baby. She’s unstrapped it from the carrier, which makes it look really small and fragile. It’s not even in his hands, and yet Ryan is suddenly terrified of dropping it. He shrinks back, like he’s back in the classroom and the teacher’s picking someone to answer a question.

“This is Isabella,” says Julia serenely, and promptly hands the baby to Shane.

Ryan once again is hit with the urge to blink away tears, but this time he forces his eyes to stay open – he can’t afford to miss a second of this moment. In Shane’s arms the baby truly looks _tiny_ , like a… little loaf of bread, or something. Julia reaches out and helps him place a hand under the baby’s head to support her neck.

“Hey,” Shane whispers reverently to the slumbering baby, brushing the back of a finger against her cheek. “Isabella.”

Ryan virtuously ignores the ache in his heart.

Isabella’s barely the length of Shane’s forearm, and she fits so perfectly in the cradle of his embrace. Shane looks transfixed, gently bobbing her up and down.

“When was she born?” Ryan asks numbly.

Julia smiles, wringing her hands together. “The 10th of October,” she announces proudly. “Two and a half months.”

Ryan nods like he has any idea what that means. “Uh-huh,” he comments, “and is she–”

“She was too young to travel, at Thanksgiving, so we had everyone at our place,” she explains, rushed. “But now she’s, you know, two and a half months.”

Two and a half months too old for this shit, apparently: she starts fussing in Shane’s arms, and Julia quickly swoops in to take her. She shushes her baby daughter, rocking her.

Shane wraps his arms around himself and looks down – right into the eyes of a little girl. She’s wearing a red dress with a sparkly sequined jacket, and her hair’s up in two thin pigtails.

She’s also hiding behind her mother’s leg, which is fair, Ryan thinks. From her perspective Shane must look like the damn Chrysler building.

To remedy this, the tall man crouches down, until all his limbs are folded up like a lawn chair and he’s… still a bit taller than her.

“Hey,” Shane says gently. The girl spooks anyway and clings harder to her mother’s leg. He continues, “I’m Shane. I really like your dress. I think it’s pretty.”

She nods, leaning her head against Julia’s thigh. “Christmas dress,” she whispers.

Shane looks her tiny being up and down. “By god, I think it is,” he divulges, straying perilously close to his Transatlantic accent. “That might be the prettiest Christmas dress I’ve ever seen!”

Just slightly, so as not to overwhelm her, he leans closer. “And who might this beautiful gown belong to?”

When she doesn’t quite understand, he simplifies: “May I know your name?”

“Lea,” the girl whispers shyly.

“Lea,” he repeats in faux-astonishment. “Why, that name might be even prettier than the dress!”

Lea giggles and squishes her face against her mother’s leg again. Shane smiles softly at her. Ryan tries to keep his body from dissolving into goop and leaking out of his shoes.

At this point everyone in the entryway is looking at them, and Shane blushes when he notices. Flustered, his eyes flicker down.

“Oops,” he whispers nonsensically, and Lea giggles.

“…Sit at the table,” Linda belatedly announces from the kitchen doorway. Her voice isn’t quite raised, like she can’t bring herself to shatter the fragility of the moment. Everybody else seem to share the sentiment – the shuffle to the dinner table is orderly and subdued.

Shane unfolds and sends another smile towards Lea. She totters after her mother and spares a quiet smile for him as well. At that point Ryan just averts his eyes to save himself the misery.

Julia darts off to put Isabella down for a nap, and Ben hoists Lea up onto an adjustable kiddie-chair. Ryan automatically walks to his normal place at the dinner place and tries to look unruffled when Shane follows suit.

“I don’t know if I can fit all this after lunch,” Shane huffs heavily, patting his rather flat stomach. “Whose idea was it to make fried food before Christmas dinner?”

“I know you’re not slandering my mother, Shane Alexander,” Ryan murmurs back as he pulls back a chair. “Just fill up that hollow leg of yours. Make room for it.”

Shane, too, pulls out a chair and sits down on Ryan’s right. He catches Lea’s eye and winks at her, then turn backs to Ryan.

“I don’t know why you think I’m the Hindenburg inside, Ryan,” Shane snippily replied. “I’m just bones and gristle. The leanest cut of meat you’ve ever seen.”

Linda hustles in, carrying a big serving platter stacked with tamales. Tía Patricia is right behind her with the big metal pot from earlier, now filled with posole rojo. Uncle Ben starts up a round of applause, and Linda does a dramatic bow, waving the oven mitts. Tía Viktoria is carrying the drinks.

Christmas dinner is, as always, fantastic. Thank god Tía Patricia had kids, because the tamale recipe would have been wasted in the hands of Ryan and Jake. Ryan loses himself in laughing with his family, but he makes sure to periodically check in on Shane next to him. Shane is chuckling right along with them. He’s lived in LA long enough to have eaten tamales before – his slim, pale fingers efficiently unwrap the steaming hot corn husks.

“Good?” Ryan asks, once Shane’s taken his first bite.

Shane rolls his eyes. “Of course,” he praises, twinkling at Ryan’s mother over the dinner table. She makes a dismissive hand motion towards him, faux-bashful. Her hands cover her cheeks as she pretends to blush, and Shane laughs merrily at her.

_He really looks like a dad when he does that_ , Ryan thinks sappily, and has to start up a conversation about the Lakers to calm himself down.

When Ryan starts to slow down, his stomach throwing in the towel, his mother starts up her usual song and dance of goading him into eating more. “Vámonos,” she jeers this time. “There’s more tamales in the kitchen! I want to see you fat as a cow, mijo!”

If Ryan had chosen competitive eating as his career, she would have been the best stage mom _ever_. Unfortunately, Ryan is but a humble video producer. His stomach recoils at the thought of more tamales, delicious though they may be.

“Dishonor on my family,” Ryan wheezes, so full he’s either going to pop or fall asleep at the table. Whichever comes first. “Dishonor on my heritage.”

Linda huffs and makes a big show of mourning him, by which he means she immediately turns to Shane next. “How about you, then?” Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “Big boy like you – you ate all your vegetables growing up. You can fit more tamales?”

Shane blinks at everyone looking at him. “Ah,” he tactfully says. “I’m actually getting pretty full too, right now.”

Linda hums, a tad disappointed. “You sure?” she asks, with motherly concern. “I’ve got plenty more in the kitchen.”

Shane smiles, shaking his head. “I’m good.”

“Well,” she sighs, taking her glass of wine and leaning back into her chair. “Maybe it’s for the best. If we kept feeding him, he would grow through the roof, like a beanstalk.” This sets off a round of laughter around the table.

Tía Viktoria says something in Spanish Ryan doesn’t quite catch, and Tía Patricia laughs uproariously. “Like her church dress!” she exclaims. “Que dia, what a– Robert, have you heard this story?”

Ryan has no idea what she’s talking about, but he’s reflexively smiling. Tía Patricia’s a great storyteller.

“Pues, it was in middle school… I was – fifteen? Querida, you were fourteen, it was right after your birthday…”

Linda interjects, “I was there!” and the table bursts out laughing again.

“Excuse me,” Shane murmurs, and rises to go to the bathroom.

_How small is his bladder? He did this exact same thing at Thanksgiving_ , Ryan thinks bemusedly, before immediately being hit with that feeling that he’s forgotten something important at home.

_Uh_ , he expectantly announces into the void of his own brain, taking a small sip in the meanwhile. He waits for his brain to magically reveal what the hell it was on about, but it never comes. There’s just a lingering feeling of disquiet, like something’s clicked into place.

When Shane comes back from the bathroom, they’ve moved onto another topic. The quandary of Shane distracted Ryan from paying attention to the end of the church dress story. Shit. Ryan zones back in just as Shane pulls out his chair again, and, uh – yikes.

“You should have been there!” Steven lightly admonishes. “Your mother made pumpkin empanadas, and uh… lots of your favorite food–”

“Jennifer was there,” Ryan’s mother pointedly comments. “She couldn’t make it out for Christmas, of course, could barely do Thanksgiving – so now you probably won’t see her for a _year_ ,” like it’s the end of the world.

Jennifer’s not even Ryan’s favorite cousin. She doesn’t _suck_ or anything, but they don’t really have anything in common. He looks to Jake for support, waving his fork in a ‘can you believe this?’ kind of way.

“It was a really great Thanksgiving,” Jake says, just to vex him. “You should have been there.”

“I made atole,” Tía Viktoria remarks sharply.

To mellow the mood a little, Uncle Ben says, “I liked the potato soup. It was really good.”

“You guys don’t do the, uh – the traditional thanksgiving?” Shane asks interestedly.

“No,” Steven huffs like the very idea of it offends him. “We just eat autumn foods, and – oh, Ryan–!” It’s like a lightbulb has gone off in his head, and he scrambles to tell Ryan something.

“What did you guys eat?” Josephine inquires curiously.

“It was the standard white Thanksgiving,” Ryan explains for the benefit of the table.

“Turkey?” Ben interjects, eyebrows raised. “All that? With – pie?”

Shane nods, a little intimidated by the entire family staring at him like a herald descended from the sky. From the end of the table, Robert huffs a chuckle.

“If there’s one thing I don’t miss,” Robert sighs, cutting into his tamale, “It’s Thanksgiving.”

* * *

At the end of the day – after soup and buñuelos and champurrado, followed by tamales and posole and roasted vegetables, and then, mercifully, just ice cream – they get ready for bed.

Shane, in his sweatpants and t-shirt, climbs into the bed, rearranging the covers over him. Ryan lies very still on his air mattress and stares up at the ceiling. Times like these are when it’s hardest to stop himself from doing something stupid.

In the interest of self-preservation, Ryan resigns himself to laying there and listening to the rustling fabric noises of sleepy Shane. (He’s, like, _right_ there. Touching distance.) However, it bears repeating:

Ryan Bergara is a dog with a bone. He simply has to push.

“I’m sorry about, uh,” Ryan mutters, scratching his eyebrow with his thumb, “how touchy they all are with you.” _It’s just that they really want me to get dick, bro. You understand that, right?_

“Nah,” Shane responds in his hoarse sleepy voice. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah?” Ryan asks hopefully.

“Yeah.”

“…You don’t mind the arguing?” Ryan queries, because it’s been eating at him all day. In the kitchen his mother cuffed him over the ear, and he had frozen in the quiet realization of how it must look to Shane.

Shane huffs a soft laugh. “No, Ryan.” After a silence, he wearily elaborates: “I know it’s not – like that. I have eyes, Ryan.”

There’s a shuffle as Shane turns over on the bed, facing the wall. “It’s nice,” Ryan faintly hears him mumble. “Your family’s nice.”

* * *

That night, Ryan has a dream – no, not a dream, it’s a _memory_. Ask and thou shalt receive.

“You like it, Shane?” Sherry asks, sipping her wine.

Her son nods amiably. “Yeah,” he gets out around a mouthful of turkey, and Ryan nods along as believably as he can. It’s perfectly passable turkey. The gravy’s good.

“Good,” she says. “You’ll finally get some meat on your bones.”

* * *

It’s Christmas morning, but Ryan’s mom told him to chill, so he’s only got his alarm set for 7:30.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Shane groans when he hears the chirping tune. He heavily turns over onto his side and hoists the covers over him, thumping them down and snuggling into them.

Ryan blearily blinks awake.

“Oh my god,” Shane swears when the alarm continues. “Ryan, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Yes, dear,” Ryan rasps in his morning haze, fumbling for his phone and tapping aimlessly until it shuts up.

It is blissfully quiet: like sunlight streaming through curtains, and down floating through the air to land softly on the ground–

“Oh my god,” Ryan croaks. “It’s Christmas.”

He sits upright, which is made significantly harder by the air mattress. “Shane!”

Shane moans pitifully.

“It’s–” With a frankly insulting amount of effort, Ryan manages to clamber out of his inflated prison. He climbs onto the bed, which results in an _oof_ as his knee connects with Shane’s spine. “Merry Christmas, Shane!”

Shane grumbles. Ryan grabs his side through the covers and pulls him over onto his back, so the man’s facing him. Shane throws his arm over his face and grates, “You– _Passhole_ , Ryan.”

Ryan’s not exactly listening. _My, what lean, unblemished arms you have, Grandma,_ his brain drools. It’s too early in the morning to trust himself with thoughts like that:

“Merry Christmas,” Ryan repeats, for lack of anything safer to say.

Shane drags his arm off his face, letting Ryan see his face for the first time today. His eyes look so _sleepy_ like this, and he has pillow creases on his cheekbone. He blinks his long eyelashes slowly, drowsily. Ryan is abruptly aware of how he is leaning over Shane, staring down at him.

“Good morning,” Shane grunts, and buries his head back into the sheets. The fact that his head lands somewhere along Ryan’s thigh is mere coincidence.

* * *

Shane’s Midwestern guilt eventually overrules his desire to stay in bed. Ryan’s still in pajamas, but Shane makes the effort of dressing: his trademark chinos with a white sweater so soft Ryan has to clench his hands. They trod downstairs to see the family around the dinner table, eating breakfast.

“Mijos!” Linda exclaims, giving them both a hug before letting them sit down at the table. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, mom,” Ryan responds happily, putting some pancakes on his plate. Shane groggily repeats, “Merry Christmas, m– uh, Linda.”

They eat a leisurely breakfast, since none of the kids are there to rush them. In their absence, the house is quiet and peaceful. Shane pokes his arm, murmurs, “Ryan.”

“Mm?” Ryan asks around a mouthful of eggs.

Shane leans closer, whispers in his ear: “I don’t have any gifts for the kids. I didn’t know–”

Hurriedly, Ryan swallows his food. “No, no,” he protests, “You don’t have to. I didn’t even tell you, dude–”

The commotion alerts Linda. “What?” she demands, worried. When Shane explains his plight, she scoffs and flaps her hand at him. “No, mijo, don’t worry.”

Shane looks worried. “I only have gifts for you guys – Jake, and Ryan,” he frets. “I’m sorry, I didn’t – if I had known, I would have–”

“It’s fine,” she insists, but frowns, “Didn’t– Ryan, didn’t you tell him?”

Ryan tries to think of a tactful way to phrase ‘ _We haven’t been talking to each other. For a month_.’

“…I forgot,” he says lamely. Shane sits stiffly next to him.

“Díos mio,” Linda mutters to her pancakes. “No, Shane, it’s fine, I promise. We’re just happy to have you here,” she reassures genuinely. “You didn’t even have to get us presents.”

She gets up from her chair. “More pancakes?” she asks serenely. Shane shakes his head. She goes to the kitchen anyway, carrying the empty platter. To Ryan, she hisses, “ _Hablame en la cocina_ ,” as she passes behind his chair.

In the kitchen, she crosses her arms. “You _forgot_?”

“We haven’t been talking to each other lately,” Ryan snaps to head her off before she can get started. Immediately, he regrets blurting that out. He doesn’t do well under stress.

Linda stops short and blinks awkwardly, wind out of her sails. “You’ve been arguing?” she carefully treads.

How does one even begin to explain what happened at Thanksgiving? Ryan doesn’t even know, himself. He lies awake at night, wondering how the entire world shifted like that: it was the roughest thing he’s ever seen, and yet it happened so easily. It slid out of control, effortlessly, like a well-oiled door hinge.

And he wasn’t even the target of the damn inquisition. Ryan lies awake, every night, and wonders how Shane’s doing.

Speaking of: “I – It’s not my story to tell, mom,” he whispers apologetically. “But I – I wish I could tell you.”

His mother’s dark eyes regard him mournfully. Ryan has her eyes: heavy-lidded, dark, big. “Is it about Thanksgiving?” she gently suggests.

Ryan goes very, very still, like she’ll forget he’s there if he freezes for long enough.

“You haven’t spoken about it at all,” she explains at his panicked stare. “Neither of you.”

“…Yeah, no,” he eventually breathes, laughing slightly. “We haven’t. It doesn’t really – bear repeating.”

His mother says nothing, just gazes at him.

“I think we just want to forget,” Ryan settles on. “That it ever happened.”

“Can you?” Linda asks, and Ryan can’t really answer that question. He tries his best.

He supposes that’s the answer: he can’t, really.

* * *

“Merry Christmas!” Lea cheers the minute she’s through the door. The suspense of Christmas morning has washed away any previous reticence the girl had. “Gifts, Shane?”

Shane looks a little flabbergasted by the girl referring to him as a person of authority. “After breakfast,” Julia interjects, for what sounds like the fifteenth time.

Five minutes later, Robert and Tía Patricia pull up outside. Josephine is the first to walk in, unzipping her puffer jacket and sitting down on the couch with her phone. Despite fiddling with it, she’s not actually using it, instead looking around at the people in the room and waiting for them to start opening presents.

In the end, Shane needn’t have worried – Julia is very understanding, and declares Shane’s gift will have to be looking after Lea for the day. “Since she’s practically infatuated with you,” she laughs.

In regard to Tía Patricia, she just smiles, shaking her head at Shane. She puts a hand on his arm, whispering something, but Ryan doesn’t quite catch what. Then she hands him off to Robert, and the two men rant about… ‘salted nut rolls’? Ryan decides not to involve himself. Robert seems engaged enough already: the usually stoic man is waving his arms, insistent about his case. Shane’s laughing.

Christmas Day passes like a pleasant haze. Ryan receives a book on Japanese cinema from his father, and from Jake a pair of fresh sneaks. Someone gave him a tie, which is… nice? But all in all, he doesn’t care about the presents. He just enjoys the moment.

Lea is going absolutely feral on her wrapping paper. Tía Viktoria is meditating, or something: she sits on the couch with her head leaned back. She might be sleeping. Steven is showing Uncle Ben something on his phone. Jake’s vaguely telling Ryan a story about some girl, glancing back to Linda every once in a while, who is making sure neither of her sons are on their phones.

Ryan looks over to the centerpiece in the room, and smiles: Shane is sitting on an armchair with Lea on his lap. He looks very slightly overwhelmed.

After hoisting her daughter on Shane, Julia had joined the other women in meddling. Isabella is calm, breastfeeding. The four aunts are huddled together on two sofas, whispering. They toss not-so-discreet glances at Ryan.

“Steven,” Linda eventually speaks up, hands poised in her lap. Ryan’s father looks up with a bewildered stare over his glasses. She swiftly says, “Wasn’t there an extra gift you wanted to give to Ryan?”

Steven looks lost. “What gift?”

Linda expectantly looks towards the kitchen.

Eureka, it hits him: “Oh!”

He bounces up from the couch. “Ryan!” Steven exclaims, waving his hand for Ryan to follow, and races over to the fridge. He pulls out a huge sweet potato and triumphantly holds it aloft over his head. “Yaki-imo!”

(Ryan likes yaki-imo just fine. Honestly, he prefers mom’s flan, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell his father that.)

“Wow!” he exclaims with a smile, nevertheless.

“What’s… that?” Shane politely inquires.

(Ryan turns: Shane has followed him, sans Lea, which is once again giving his brain free rein, unfortunately.)

Steven turns to Ryan, using the sweet potato to point at him. “Ryan?” he quizzes, in the age-old attempt to teach Ryan some Japanese words. This is, like, the only one Ryan remembers. “Baked sweet potato,” Ryan announces drolly, and Steven cheers. The father hands the sweet potato to Shane, who gently examines it. “Wow,” he comments.

His pale fingers grip the dusty sweet potato, turning it every which way, and Ryan can’t believe he’s jealous of a _spud_ right now.

“I tried to order the authentic ones, from Japan – the dirt’s different there, better,” Steven enthuses, “but the shipping was too expensive.” He takes the potato back, tucking it in the crook of his arm like a baby. “These are from San Diego. Buy local!” he laughs.

“What are you going to do with them?” Shane makes the mistake of asking, and Ryan’s father grabs Shane’s hand and tows him out to the backyard to show him his Traeger grill.

Linda walks into the kitchen to see her son standing alone by the fridge. Ryan is staring out towards the patio door. She walks up to Ryan and hugs him. “What did you think of your present?” she says, amused.

Ryan answers flatly, “Me encanta,” and she lightly pinches his ear.

Ryan leans into his mother’s embrace and contemplates the granite countertop. It’s quiet – he can’t even hear his father inevitably blabbering away at Shane outside in the garden. Instead, Ryan feels his mother’s warmth. Inside of him stirs a strange, restless feeling.

It’s reminiscent of the Old City Jail: when jittery fear turns to unhinged mania, a long-term fight-or-flight response boiling over. The episode that had prompted a friendly hug from Shane just to _calm Ryan down_. (To Ryan, still shaky with dwindling adrenaline, that hug had formed one of his fondest memories. He stood, trembling, and inhaled the smell of ghost-hunter Shane: laundry detergent, and deodorant, and clean sweat. Warmth.)

The reminder of better times – when Shane could stand to _touch_ him – cements a deep melancholy Ryan hadn’t even known he was feeling. He feels numb, almost.

He wishes things were simpler: he wishes he could hug Shane, and cuddle him, and maybe smooch him a little. The thoughts are routine by now – every day he looks at Shane’s smooth, pale skin and his heart hurts a little.

But Ryan can’t up and ruin their relationship. His entire life, his _job,_ literally depends on their relationship being good. It’s not _stellar_ at the moment, but at least it’s steady. Ryan can’t muster up the willpower to disturb this wary impasse of theirs: _what if he fucks it up? What if he –_

_What if he somehow loses Shane?_

It feels too perilous a thought to even think. Ryan _needs_ Shane too much to lose him – which he might, if he pushes him on this. Four years in LA, and not once has Shane gone on a date or done anything overtly sexual. Shane is, for all intents and purposes, celibate.

_He just got out of an abusive relationship_ , Ryan reprimands himself. _He’s clearly not gonna be up for you laying the moves on him_. Ryan wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if his dick got in the way of their perfectly amiable friendship. God, to lose Shane: what would he even do without Shane in his life? It’s unthinkable.

Ryan recognizes that he’s spiraling right now, as he tends to do. His brain loves getting caught up on fiddly what-if scenarios like this. Even as he recognizes that, he is gripped with an irrational desire to roll Shane up in bubble wrap to shield him from even the smallest bruise. _I’d probably die for him_ , Ryan absentmindedly throws out, which immediately backfires: his brain latches on to it and cements it as _true_. He nudges at it a little, but it doesn’t give. It’s grown roots. It’s fact.

For once, Ryan would like to have an important revelation in, say, the living room. _Or the bedroom_ , the devil on his shoulder reminds him. Before Ryan’s imagination can importantly revelate whatever Shane’s packing in those chinos, his father comes back in. Behind him is Ryan’s tall friend, no longer hauled along by his sleeve. Shane looks grateful to be back: it seems even his Midwestern small talk has a limit.

“Ryan,” Shane enthuses, and immediately peters out. “Uh.” He glances to the doorway, his escape, and blurts, “Lea probably needs me back.”

Then he walks out and dutifully, Ryan follows. The very presence of Shane has brightened his mood, like God’s poking him in the back and going _‘Look, see. He’s right there! Still alive and kicking!’_

In the living room, Tía Patricia is saying something about her daughter’s wedding. Shane strides over to the armchair, and Lea eagerly scrambles up to sit on his lap again. By the look of it, she jams her knee into something important: Shane grimaces and shifts slightly.

Ryan tries not to smile. Meanwhile, Shane’s picked up the thread of the conversation: “Ryan didn’t have any girl cousins?” He shifts Lea on his lap, hands under her arms lifting her easily.

“Yes, it’s such a shame,” Linda interjects from behind Ryan. “Ryan had no one to play with.” (Jake frowns.) “I wish we had more boys in the family.”

Tía Viktoria looks up over her glasses and gives Ryan a juicy Look. Ryan has to bite his lip and look away so he doesn’t laugh. In his haste, he accidentally meets Shane’s eyes: the man is staring at him, with a look that’s almost –

_Get it together, Ryan_.

Shane is just looking at him calmly, while listening to Linda bemoan the age gap between Ryan and his cousins. Completely normal. _Just guys being dudes_ , Ryan thinks.

Shane’s long arms lie cradled around Lea like a nest. The young girl is – smelling his shirt? Her face is buried in Shane’s side. Ryan tries not to judge her. _Glass houses_ , the devil on Ryan’s shoulder slyly reminds.

Ryan looks away: Shane realizes what Lea’s doing, and he gently pulls the girl away from his armpit. “Hey,” he admonishes quietly, and she protests, “I wanna hug you!”

_Yeah, kid_ , Ryan mutters. _Tell me about it_. 

* * *

Christmas Day ends much like Christmas Eve: quietly, without a fuss. They say goodbye to the family as they drive off to their hotels, then have coffee and cookies. After that Shane and Ryan retreat upstairs.

These are Ryan’s favorite moments, unequivocally – the hushed peace between the two of them. For once, the silence isn’t awkward.

They get through their nightly routines in silence. The first word comes later, when they’re both in bed, and Shane pokes his nose out of his covers to break the atmosphere.

“Good night,” he says simply, and his voice is raspy and warm and Ryan aches.

“Good night,” Ryan dutifully responds, but Shane doesn’t roll back over. His head remains half-turned, like he’s about to look over his shoulder, at where Ryan’s laying on the air mattress. The light stays on.

“Why did you invite me to your parents’ for Christmas, Ryan?”

Ryan says the first thing that comes to mind; it also happens to be true. “Because I want–” _you._ “–to hang out with you, big guy,” he smiles weakly.

Shane, ever the skeptic: “For 4 days straight? The entire Christmas break?”

_For as long as you’ll have me, buddy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **NOTES:**
> 
>   * Why the fuck is everything in LA????? I thought Arcadia was far away?????? Everything on the West Coast is in LA except for Las Vegas which is for some reason not even in California
>   * Correction: Los Angeles City is deadass bigger than entire countries and I am afraid
>   * Shaudrey Mapburn’s (Shane Madej + Audrey Hepburn) line is [that one meme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl_Qyk9DSUw) from Arrested Development. 
>   * No, seriously, [Ryan’s dad](https://ik.imagekit.io/smdxc0e2g3/userscontent2-endpoint/images/ee68e8ca-4b89-4086-ab00-1ddc56630875/071e0b16ab5e304d7f9027de6cf67071.png?tr=w-680,rt-auto) looks like Colonel Sanders. (Left to right: Jake, Linda, Ryan, Steven and ‘Ben’.) 
>   * Ryan eats tamales and posole on Christmas [confirmed](https://twitter.com/ryansbergara/status/945390950431342592?lang=en). 
>   * I did an excessive amount of research on Mexican food for this. If _you_ actually know what you’re talking about, though, lemme know! There’s lots more food they have to eat :)) 
>   * A Passhole is a person who milks their Disney Annual Pass for all it’s worth, or [as Ryan puts it](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N1UcLrbb4g&t=23m0s)…
> 

> 
> I get that Ryan’s family (even if it’s just his immediate one) can be confusing – that was the intent. Because I love you, though: [Ryan’s family tree](https://imgur.com/gallery/sXRAbnx).


	3. at last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *air punching* **FOUR DAYS, BABY!!!!!** (Never expect this kind of behavior ever again.)
> 
> Hell yeah!!! My writing juices are flowing – all thanks to the kind commenters who supported past chapters :)) Shoutout to the backbones of our society!! You guys rule <3
> 
> **Content Warning** for past Slut-Shaming, and references to past Non-Con: Ryan accidentally triggers Shane, but they talk through it and Shane is fine. Further details in end notes!

In retrospect, Ryan would say the 26th is when shit gets real. At the very least, shit gets importantly revelated. The day is a delicate balancing act, comprised of a series of fortunate and… _not_ so fortunate events.

Surprisingly, it all starts with Tía Viktoria.

“Ryan,” his aunt calls, motioning for him to join her on the sofa. It’s just her in the living room: everyone else is still eating breakfast in the dining room.

As Ryan sits, Tía Viktoria grabs his arm. “Ryan,” she says gravely, like it’s a matter of life and death, “How old am I?”

“Uhhhhhh,” Ryan stalls. “Twenty-five.”

Tía Viktoria gives him a flat look.

“You’re a spring flower, Tía,” Ryan tries, and she slaps his arm.

“No, Ryan,” she intones, “I am _old_. I am old, and frail, and dying, and at this point I’ll get a front-row seat to you losing your virginity to Shane from up in _heaven_.”

“Tía!” Ryan protests, and then stops because the next sentence was going to be ‘ _I’ve had sex before’_ , which isn’t _remotely_ the point, nor something he can say to his _aunt_.

Tía Viktoria has realized the same thing: “What?” she asks gleefully.

Ryan tries to keep it moving, spluttering, “I– I’m not–” Oh god, “What do you mean?” he leaves it at, because his lawyer isn’t present.

Tía Viktoria gives him a highly dubious squint. “It’s been 84 years, mijo,” she says in her best old-crotchety-woman voice. “Go get it.”

Ryan tries to overcome the fact that his aunt just told him to _get it_. He tries a little more. …Yeah, no.

In a whisper, Ryan confirms, “Shane?” and immediately has to shush Tía Viktoria as she cackles loudly. The outburst attracts the attention of Shane, poking his head through the doorway. “Alright?” the tall man checks, just leaning his lean, tall body against the wall like it isn’t making Ryan’s brain melt out of his ears.

“…Yeah,” Ryan manages to squeak. Shane kindly gives him a sardonic nod and leaves him to his embarrassment.

No help from home field, either: “ _Ryan_ ,” Tía Viktoria laments, so pitying Ryan doesn’t actually have to look at her face to catch it. She grasps his hand in both of hers, and leans in. “ _Climb_ him,” she hisses. 

“You– Why does it matter so much to you?” Ryan defends. “If he’s that hot, why – Why don’t you just climb him yourself?”

Tía Viktoria gives him a look so cynical it almost looks like she’s genuinely worried about him. “Ryan,” she says.

Ryan doesn’t get it. He crosses his arms. “Why are you so – invested in my love life? Just because, what, it’s a guy?” He huffs, “You don’t even – you’ve been single forever, Tía. Respectfully. Why do you care now?”

“ _Ryan_ ,” like he just tried to put metal in the microwave. Tía Viktoria even puts her hand on his forehead as if to take his temperature, and Ryan swats her hand off. “What?” he snaps, and Tía Viktoria abruptly leans back and fixes him with a Dire look.

“Ryan,” she starts, and irritably Ryan retorts, “Don’t wear it out.”

She flicks his ear. “Do you remember the cruise for my 50th birthday?” she explains patiently.

Ryan considers dramatically gasping _‘You? Fifty??’_ , but he can’t be bothered right now. “Yes,” he grumbles instead.

“Do you remember the Italy trip?” she continues. Ryan nods.

“The Michelin restaurant?” Another nod.

“Anita’s– No, you weren’t there for that.” Tía Viktoria thinks for another example.

Ryan is getting pretty fed up. “And???” he exclaims, frustrated with this pointless exercise.

Tía Viktoria slumps. “Who was there, _every_ time?” she demands, and she clearly doesn’t mean the family. Ryan only has to think about it for a couple seconds. The answer’s obvious: “Stephanie,” Ryan answers.

Tía Viktoria squints at him.

“What?? Why is that so weird?” He gestures defensively. “You guys were best friends, just like us, and you were **_oh my god_**.”

Tía Viktoria nods sympathetically.

Ryan can’t believe this is happening to him. In real life, right now. On this leather couch in Arcadia.

_And they were roommates_ , the devil on his shoulder croons, and Ryan’s brain responds: _Oh my god, they were roommates_.

* * *

After that mindbender, Ryan has to pretend like nothing happened, like the world didn’t just shift on its axis. He stays in a groggy haze until they’ve cleared the breakfast table and sat in the living room. Lea hasn’t gotten the memo about the Christmas Day arrangement: she’s determined that Shane is her keeper now, and tries to climb onto his lap at every opportunity.

Ryan watches her sixth attempt with a far-away wonder. He sits slouched on the couch, just kind of… contemplating his existence. Tía Viktoria has triggered something terrible: she has, albeit indirectly, validated Ryan’s crush to the next level.

‘ _Go do something about it_ ’, she had said, to be fair. Unfortunately, Ryan’s brain interpreted that as ‘ _Do jack shit and then go jack your shit about it_ ’.

“ _Dude_ ,” Jake mutters, nudging Ryan’s ribs to let him know he’s staring. “You need to get – ”

“Get on it, I know,” Ryan mumbles, numb.

“…your shit together,” Jake finishes slowly. “Uh.”

Ryan can’t be bothered to care. Lea’s managed it, this time, and Shane seems content to let her win: when she leans back against his chest, triumphant, Shane lays his arm across her middle like a seatbelt.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” Jake announces, and gets up. 

Ryan keeps on keeping on. He’s beginning to feel like a vegetable: at the very least, he must have grown roots by now.

_Shane would be such a good dad_ , the devil on his shoulder sighs, and Ryan’s inclined to agree. How ironic is it that Ryan’s plan kind of, uh, undercuts that whole _kids_ thing. Ooh, that’s a good one – how would Shane’s kids look? Ryan falls easily into the well-worn path in his imagination. They would have Shane’s nose for _sure_.

“Hey, uh, bud,” Uncle Ben whispers from Ryan’s other side. “Maybe tone down on the staring?” He gently fist-bumps Ryan’s upper arm, with a supportive little hey-maybe-don’t-do-that nod. 

Okay, yikes. If Uncle Ben’s noticed, it must be _bad_. Ryan straightens up where he sits and tries to pull himself together. By the grace of a couple deities, Shane has yet to notice Ryan’s creeping – he must be distracted by Lea, who is twisted around and grabbing at Shane’s shirt collar. Patiently, Shane indulges her, and helps set her down when she wants to grab something from her bag to show him. It doesn’t strain his arms at all.

_Down, boy_ , Ryan hisses. Jesus Christ. Next year he’ll wish for a spray bottle that he can fill with water and carry around with him.

Jake comes back in and thumps down into his chair. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he announces triumphantly.

Grateful for any distraction, Ryan asks, “Shit, how’d you manage that?” Staying four days had been a _compromise_.

Jake takes a slow sip, visibly trying not to laugh. “They didn’t protest _too_ much.” He lays a pointed glance at Shane, who’s patiently listening to Lea tell a story. (Even though he’s sitting in a plush armchair, he has to bend down to hear her as she babbles excitedly. “Gosh,” Shane responds to her, only half-ironically. “That’s really cool!” Lea looks like she’s going to lose her tiny mind.)

Ryan’s been staring for too long. When he looks back to Jake, his brother gives him a look that says ‘ _yeesh’_.

* * *

The first clue that something’s up comes when Tía Viktoria ropes Shane into a conversation about pastries. Shane’s tastes are predictably and disappointingly Midwestern, but he’s a sucker for sugar in all its forms: from the first mention of dulce, Tía Viktoria has him hooked.

Shane and Tía Viktoria spend a couple minutes whispering to each other in the corner, Lea happy to sit and listen as long as she stays with Shane. Every once in a while, the man will bounce her on his knee, which delights her. Shane himself is looking pretty stoked too, though, and with every whispered word his excitement grows.

It gets so out of control that Tía Viktoria has Shane on his feet, ready to join her in the kitchen _right now_. “We’re gonna make conchas,” Shane explains easily when Ryan asks him what the hell he’s doing. This statement doesn’t quite hold water, Ryan thinks: Shane hasn’t baked a thing in his _life_. Boxed brownies, maybe. What is he doing gallivanting off to the kitchen? Conchas look pretty complicated to Ryan.

Still, Shane’s enthusiasm is unfettered. “Come join us!” he offers graciously, Lea holding his hand and Tía Viktoria waiting behind him.

Ryan has even less baking experience than _Shane_. He does his best to politely turn down the offer, if only to save himself the humiliation. It’s one thing to hear about his cooking misfortunes, but another thing entirely to have to witness them in real life. He won’t subject his poor – aging, _frail_ – aunt to that.

“Don’t you like eating conchas?” Shane asks with a smile, and behind Ryan, Tía Patricia chokes back what sounds like the last words of a dying dog.

It is suddenly suspiciously quiet from the women in the room. “Uh,” Ryan says, squinting at Linda going red in the face, “Sure?”

“It’s fine, sweetie,” Tía Viktoria soothes. “It’s not for everyone.”

Tía Patricia makes that sound again, and when Ryan looks, she’s hidden her face in his sister’s shoulder. Said sister is laughing too, not meeting Ryan’s eyes. _Betrayed by my own mother,_ Ryan laments, leaning back on the couch. Ah, well. He’s sure he’ll figure it out eventually.

* * *

Then it escalates, over _lunch_ of all things. Ben and Julia are leaving, which means Tía Patricia and Robert thought it’d be a good idea to leave as well. Tía Viktoria has to depart too, since she’s going on a New Year’s cruise with her ‘roommate’. The occasion clearly calls for a feast: Linda and the aunts have gone all out, decking the table with crispy pan-seared chicken, roasted potatoes, a number of colorful salads, and some Mexican dish Ryan didn’t quite catch the name of.

He’d ask, but the table is overwhelmed with the clatter of cutlery and raucous conversation. Naturally, this creates the perfect setting for any wily troublemakers that would want to interrupt Ryan’s enjoyment of his finger-licking chicken.

Shane casually asks: “Do you want kids?”

Ryan’s mind screeches to a halt. (Faintly, in the dark corners of his mind, he can hear an aghast _What did he say??_ ). Out loud, he simply goes “Hmm?” with far too much gusto.

Shane looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “No, I was just wondering,” he demurs. “Since you kept staring at me and Lea.”

Ryan chokes on air. “No – It’s just cute, man,” he fumbles.

Shane nods slowly, saying nothing. “M-hm,” he hums.

“It – yeah,” Ryan reassures. “I mean, yeah. Kids are cute. I want kids.”

Shane serenely posits, “With who?”

“What?” Ryan says, because he must have heard him wrong.

“You’re going to marry someone who wants kids, right?” Shane breezes, easy as anything. He takes a smug little sip.

“Uh – Yeah,” Ryan answers, feeling like he’s in a job interview. “Yeah. I mean, maybe. Hopefully.”

“M-hm,” Shane says again, and that’s the end of that conversation.

As lunch comes to an end, people start getting ready to leave. It’s hectic, and in the chaos of it all Isabella starts fussing. Lea is making to follow suit. To distract Lea, Julia throws her at Shane, who then stands with her in a quiet corner and tries to talk her out of being grumpy. He’s at a ninety-degree angle, bent over. It actually works a treat – although that might be due to the conchas that finally came out of the oven. Lea chomps down on her concha, which is half the size of her head, and holds Shane’s hand while sulking.

It nearly comes to a boiling point when Shane has to say his goodbyes. Ryan wouldn’t blame Lea if she threw a tantrum about losing her favorite skyscraper. (He takes a couple steps back, just in case.) The room instinctually hushes as Shane crouches down to Lea’s level: everyone’s trying to be discreet about it, but this really has become the main event.

“Well, you hate to see it,” Shane starts, in his best _aw shucks_ voice. “But I’m afraid this is to be our goodbye, milady.”

Lea can’t have gotten much of that, but she certainly can read tone: her mood visibly droops, and her face drops with it. “No,” she whispers aimlessly, and wraps her arms around Shane’s neck in a hug. The half-eaten concha gets crumbs all over Shane’s shoulder.

Shane hugs back, of course – his arms come up to cradle her back, gently holding her closer. His arms are as big as, like, all of Lea. “Hey,” he hushes.

Lea seems resigned. She pulls away and clutches at his shirt collar. “Next year?” she asks, nibbling on the concha.

You could hear a fucking pin drop. Ryan tries not to meet the eyes of anyone in the room.

Softly, Shane inhales. “Oh,” he remarks. “Well, I… Maybe if you ask Santa–”

Lea’s already frowning and shaking her head. “No,” she resolutely maintains, and dives back in for another hug.

Shane embraces her, more hesitantly this time. He leans forward, and whispers something in Lea’s ear. Whatever he says seems to appease her – she whispers a couple sentences back, and Shane smiles.

After that, it’s smooth sailing: Lea’s mood is lifted by their goodbye, and she positively bounces out the doorway. Shane has a brief last encounter with Isabella, who is of course asleep. Ryan manages to keep the sappiness to a minimum.

Tía Patricia hugs Ryan firmly and commands him to get his head in the game. Josephine even deigns to give Ryan a curt hug that lasts all of 2 seconds, like she too is in support of the cuffing. The Christmas spirit must be getting to her.

Tía Viktoria grabs his arms and urges him to climb Shane like a tree. “Don’t you let that man go,” she insists, briskly hugging Ryan. “I expect to see your wedding invitations before next Christmas.”

They all say their goodbyes, and crowd on the doorstep to watch the cars leave, waving all the while. Ryan breathes in the fresh air.

* * *

Dinner _should_ have been quiet. Ryan honestly has no words. _Hey God_ , he sends vaguely upwards, _that thing I said about important revelations? Yeah, I take that back_.

This is, of course, referring to the fact that Shane decides to eye-fuck him over his parents’ dinner table.

It starts innocuous enough: Shane simply stretches out his foot, underneath the table, and pokes Ryan with it. Ryan looks up from his plate to see what it is that Shane needs, but Shane stays silent, and his face gives away nothing as he once again pokes Ryan’s shoe.

Ryan puts down his fork. _Um?_ he sends Shane via facial expression. _What the fuck?_

Shane just smiles at him and resumes eating his vegetables.

Ryan is sort of at a loss. Usually, he would hound Shane for answers, but his mom’s in the middle of a story and everyone’s listening to her. _Well then_ , he thinks, and leaves it at that.

Besides: “What do you think about nose piercings?” Jake asks him, out of nowhere, which is much more important. Predictably, this conversation devolves into awful infections and unfortunate piercing accidents. Ryan and Jake take turns horrifying their mother with stories of pus-filled scrotums and the like, while she shudders and covers her mouth. She’s so morbidly intrigued she forgets to tell them to cut it out.

“And then his – _down there_ , got like, infected–” Ryan is saying, and his mother interrupts to gasp, “Down _there_?”

Jake nods seriously, grabbing more potatoes. “It got filled with pus,” he starts, and their mother wails for them to shut up.

“Por Dios,” she mutters, rubbing her eyes. “Neither of you are ever allowed to get any piercings.”

Jake looks shifty. “About that…”

She recoils from her son like he’s a monster. “Down _there?!_ ”

Jake chokes on his water. “No,” he hurriedly explains, wiping his mouth, while Ryan has a long good laugh at him. “I was thinking, like, a nose piercing–”

“Like an ox??” Linda looks appalled. “You want– _Moo_ , is that what you want to look like?”

Steven is just watching, enjoying the show. Meanwhile, Jake fights for his life: “Wh– _No_ , it won’t look like a cow!” he protests, “I mean, like, on the side–”

“Madre mía,” Linda groans, “Men and their ‘on the side’ – ”

Ryan chokes not only on his food but also, like, his _childhood._ Steven’s too busy defending himself to thump him on the back. “Linda!” he protests, and Ryan’s mom cackles and sips her wine.

Ryan has only just composed himself when he feels Shane’s foot on his leg again, nudging aside his knee. _Dude_ , he conveys with a flustered look, closing his legs again. Shane’s foot returns, this time stroking along the inside of his calf, and Ryan tucks his legs under his chair and tries to will the blush out of his face.

“Shane,” he says out loud, to the bemusement of his family, and Shane finally lets him be.

Ryan should have known Shane wouldn’t admit defeat so easily. It’s barely been five minutes when Ryan notices Shane staring at him like a prime rib. He haltingly swallows the food in his mouth, again sending Shane a _What?_

As far as Ryan is aware, eating isn’t a spectator sport. But he already called Shane out once and he feels too embarrassed to do it again. His family’s having a pleasant conversation. No one has noticed. Shane’s not _doing_ anything, technically: all he does is regard Ryan, so intimate Ryan can practically feel it brushing over his skin.

A comparison strikes Ryan; he is reminded of a predator, weighing up its prey. Shane stares at him, dark eyes lidded and hungry. He’s not even eating. Instead, he has his chin propped up on his hand as he leisurely contemplates Ryan. It’s like Ryan is an exhibit at a museum, there for his viewing pleasure.

It awakes something strange in Ryan, tingling under his skin. He… likes it. Certain _parts_ of him, anyway. Ryan thinks he could spend an eternity on display for Shane, like a treasured pet in a cage. A sudden throbbing between his legs makes him sit up. Oh god, no – please don’t make him pop a boner at his mother’s dinner table.

Shane’s gaze is as steady as ever. If Ryan lets his imagination loose, he can almost see a small glint in Shane’s eye, like he _knows_ Ryan is slowly stiffening under the table. Ryan closes his knees, as if he can hide from Shane’s sight.

He finishes his dinner with Shane’s stare resting heavy on him, and a semi in his pants.

* * *

Shane stretches with a big yawn, arms over his head. “Well, I’ve been called a lot of things before, Ryan, but never your boyfriend.”

Shane must take some sick pleasure in catching Ryan off-guard in the most vulnerable of moments – like, say, when Ryan’s bent in half, plugging his phone in to charge.

“Wh– Huh?” Ryan manages. That’s going in his hall of fame of Most Eloquent Moments, that one.

Shane twists onto his side, leaning his face on his arm, and smiles at him in what should be an innocuous manner but is decidedly _not_. If anything, he looks… cat-like. Like the cat who got the cream. This may be a carry-over from Ryan’s childhood crush on Catwoman.

“Your boyfriend,” Shane repeats with a conniving twinkle in his eye.

Ryan is lost for words. “Who… called you that?” he ventures cautiously. _We have an infiltrator in our midst, gentlemen_.

Shane smiles: “Lea.”

_Aw, shit_ , Ryan immediately mourns. _Fuck_. That’s not exactly salvageable. Julia must have let it slip.

Shane still looks gorgeous, long pale arms sprawled over his head, calmly looking at Ryan and waiting for his answer. Oh, right:

“Wow,” Ryan responds, leaning on the dresser. “That’s weird. I – don’t know why she would think that.”

“Don’t you?” Shane asks, not unkindly.

“Kids, y’know,” Ryan is blabbing. “Wh– What?”

“Do you want me to tell you?” Shane asks, slowly getting up from the bed and walking towards Ryan. “I can explain it to you.”

“Uh,” says Ryan, who is terrified but also acutely aware that his dick is stirring in his sweatpants. Timidly, he tries: “…Sure?”

Shane walks all the way over to him, so close Ryan reflexively steps backwards. Of course, Shane steps even closer, looming tall above him. Usually, Ryan is all for Shane’s looming – it’s on his top ten list of Hottest Shane Things. Now, though, he feels slightly regretful about that, because it’s creating a confusing mess of trepidation and arousal in his gut. Above him, Shane’s face is shadowed, and they’re so close Ryan can feel the heat of Shane’s skin through his thin shirt.

Ryan’s dick is _painfully_ hard. All the blood in his body has been put to the task: he feels like he’s going to faint. _That was fast_ , he comments to his dick, but he is no longer steering this ship. Ryan takes one last step backwards, and then his back is against the wall. Shane has him cornered.

“I think,” Shane breathes, tucking his fingers into the waistband of Ryan’s sweatpants, “that everyone in a five-mile radius can see how gone you are on me.”

Shane’s fingers are cold where they’re pressed against Ryan’s skin, _two inches_ away from his boner. It’s like Ryan’s entire body is lit up, his skin sparking with arousal. He feels inclined to kind of just… hump Shane’s leg. _Down, boy_ , he commands himself somewhat unsuccessfully. This is, by definition, a major L.

Ryan swallows so hard it’s audible in the silence. Shane’s eyes drop to his throat, to his mouth. “I think,” he continues, “that they would have to be blind not to see the way you stare at me when I’m in the room.”

No, seriously, Ryan’s feeling lightheaded. Shane’s eyes are warm and knowing. Who knew Shane could be so… _sensual?_ They’re close enough that Ryan could get up on his tiptoes, lean in and kiss him. God, he wants to kiss him. As Ryan looks at Shane’s lips, they turn up at the corners. Down below, Shane’s fingers leisurely stroke back and forth across Ryan’s hipbones. His skin has never been so sensitive.

Shane, at least, seems pleased by the trance he’s got Ryan in. “And you know what?” he adds, like he knows Ryan’s gagging for it.

“What?” Ryan whispers, rash thing that he is.

Shane leans in and bends to whisper it in Ryan’s ear: “I think you invited me to your parents’ house for Christmas just to _look_ at me.” His hands grip Ryan’s waist, warm and firm. “And you stare at me, in front of your entire family, and you imagine fucking me right there.” As he exhales, air tingles over Ryan’s neck so he gets goosebumps all the way down to his toes.

“God,” Ryan chokes, and then he’s pushing Shane back so he can kiss him with all he’s got. He has to go up on his tiptoes. The kiss is soft, and plush, and beyond what Ryan could have imagined. He can’t believe he’s _tasting_ Shane right now. Shane yields willingly, curling his hand around the back of Ryan’s neck. After a moment, Ryan softens the kiss: he’s not trying to bruise Shane, here.

Holy shit, sexy times with Shane. His best friend. Distantly, Ryan can feel something in the back of his head poking at him, going _‘Hey, this is weird, right?’_ He couldn’t give less of a shit, really: gift horses and all that. But he supposes his conscience has a point. Ryan pulls away, and their lips part wetly. “Unusually bold today,” he manages to remark between kisses.

“You’re easy,” Shane quickly mutters, and grinds against Ryan. It’s a blunt reminder that Ryan is kissing a man – there’s definitely a _situation_ in his pants, haphazardly rubbing up against Ryan’s boner. Shane’s tall enough that his dick is at the height of Ryan’s belly button. It brands a hard line of heat against Ryan’s abdomen. Embarrassingly, Ryan lets out a broken groan into Shane’s mouth.

“God, Shane,” Ryan squeezes out, “You’re so hard.” He can feel Shane breathily laugh against his lips, but he doesn’t care: Ryan presses closer, deepening their kiss. His neck is tilted so far back to meet Shane’s mouth that his head keeps hitting the wall.

At a particularly hard thrust, Ryan almost comes in his pants. “Jeez, Shane,” he laughs, pulling away so he doesn’t humiliate himself. Instead, Ryan slips his hands into Shane’s sweatpants and grabs his cock. It can’t be that difficult, right? Ryan’s jerked himself off plenty of times.

This idea is immediately foiled when Ryan feels Shane in his hand: he’s rock hard, hot, and fucking huge. “ _Shane_ ,” Ryan breathes, trying not to develop a complex. He feels the length of Shane’s cock, slightly damp against his palm, and “Where the fuck do you hide that thing?”

Shane’s knitted brow comes undone as he cracks up. His muscles contract with each laugh, which makes his dick jump slightly in Ryan’s hand. “It’s proportional,” he finally pants.

Ryan’s still not over it. “ _Dude_ ,” he emphasizes, with a squeeze on Shane’s cock, and Shane groans in pleasure and says, “Don’t _‘dude’_ me with my dick in your hand.”

Tough crowd. Ryan redirects his attention to the (oversized) guest of honor, starting with a slow stroke. The _heat_ of it is so much more confronting when it’s not his own dick. Ryan tries out a couple tactics to see what Shane likes. It feels different like this: the angle’s off, it’s unbearably intimate, and did he mention it’s Proportionate?

“You’re so hard,” Ryan hears himself say: he doesn’t even care that he sounds like bad porn. “You want it?” The words are coming out of his mouth are irrelevant, he just needs to fill the moment. Shane groans, leaning his head forward and resting it on the wall. His neck is right in front of Ryan’s face, so Ryan busies himself with nipping small kisses into it. Shane’s neck is just as soft as he imagined.

“Yeah?” he pants, twisting his hand on the upstroke. “You like that?” Shane’s hips jerk forward, and he groans again. Things are certainly coming along, Ryan thinks. With every small twitch of Shane’s hips, the head of his dick hits Ryan’s t-shirt. It’s growing into a small wet spot, which should be gross, but Ryan is _so_ into it.

“God,” he whispers into Shane’s neck, “You want it so fucking bad. You love it,” and squeezes his hand. It elicits another jerk from Shane’s hips, which is why it takes Ryan a second to realize the tall man above him has stilled completely.

He looks down, in case he’s missed it somehow, but Shane hasn’t come. He’s just – frozen. “Shane?” Ryan whispers, leaning in to try to see the man’s face, and Shane suddenly jerks back. His face is open, vulnerable: he doesn’t meet Ryan’s eyes. “Don’t say that,” he says quietly, staring somewhere around Ryan’s shoulder. “Don’t – Don’t call me that.”

Ryan is still holding his dick in his hand. He loosens his grasp, and tries to think back to what he called Shane: he can’t remember. “I’m sorry,” Ryan whispers, “I – What did I say? I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” he promises, hushed. He has no idea what he said; he was just blabbing away on autopilot.

Shane pulls away. Ryan lets go of his dick: it’s softening, now, anyway. Shane didn’t even get to come. Ryan remains where he is, leaning against the wall, and watches Shane tuck his semi back into his pants.

It’s quiet. _Now look what you’ve done_ , Ryan’s brain snaps. _You’ve really done it this time, Bergara. He’s never going to want you after this._

Well, he’s not gonna – just _give up_. After all they’ve been through, Ryan can’t even get Shane through one handjob? Fuck that. He didn’t suffer the worst Thanksgiving ever only to lose Shane like this: indignified, quietly, with a tucked-away semi.

Ryan steps forward and puts a hand on Shane’s arm. “Shane?” he asks, and the man reluctantly meets his eyes. “Can you tell me what I did wrong? So I can – not do that, next time?”

_You’re really getting ahead of yourself there_ , Ryan’s devil cackles. _What makes you think he’ll even want to **work** with you after this? _

Ryan brushes it aside and focuses on keeping a steady stare into Shane’s eyes. He tries to project encouragement, comfort: to let Shane see he’s really trying, here.

Shane’s eyes flicker away. “Just don’t – don’t say that, Ryan,” he murmurs, holding his own arms.

“Okay,” Ryan concedes reassuringly. “What was it that I said? Sorry,” he quickly adds.

Shane’s gaze keeps straying: he looks uncomfortable, like he’d rather be somewhere else. “That I – want it. That I wanted it,” he finishes faintly.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan immediately apologizes. “I won’t do it again – If, ah, you still want. To do it again.”

Shane is distant, staring off into the distance. Staring at his duffle bag. He nods, though, for what it’s worth. He’s not exactly brimming with enthusiasm.

Another silence. Ryan lasts about thirty seconds before blurting out, “Can we talk about it?” He’s doing the right thing, he reminds himself: he’s being an adult about it. Talking about your feelings is good. It doesn’t feel like it, really, when he sees Shane’s shoulders hitch up self-consciously.

Ryan’s pushed enough already, so he stays quiet. He waits for Shane’s answer.

It takes a good minute – spent in agonizing anxiety for Ryan – but Shane eventually rasps, “Yeah,” walking over to the bed. “You’re right. We should talk about it.” He stays unspeaking, however, so it seems it’s up to Ryan to do so.

“Did someone say that to you, before?” Ryan hesitantly ventures. He instantly feels like an idiot right afterwards: _Well, duh_ , Ryan thinks. He can’t believe he actually forgot about _him_ for a second.

Shane looks up, darkly amused. “Yeah,” he mutters, “He did.” He hugs himself, and the cross of his arms looks like armor. His sleeves twist sharply around his arms under his stiff grip.

Ryan kneels on the air mattress. “Oh,” he leaves it at, and tries not to tip over when the air mattress shifts under him. “Um,” he tries, but Shane holds up a hand.

“Just – be quiet for a minute. I’ll tell you.”

Shane stares fixedly out the window again, his face carved from stone. Ryan keeps kneeling awkwardly, but his knees start to protest, so he makes the best of it: he lays down, and gets comfortable with the blanket over him. _It can’t be awkward if you don’t make it awkward_ , he sing-songs in his head, and pulls the pillow under his head. At least it amuses Shane: the man looks at him with a quiet twinkle in his eye.

It takes a while longer. Whole minutes must pass as Ryan lays snuggled up under his blanket and waits for the other man to talk. Shane contemplates what he’s going to say, surveying the gray landscape of Arcadia outside.

“After it happened,” he starts slowly, “he told me that he did it because I wanted it.”

Ryan has no idea what ‘it’ is, or what happened. That’s probably the only reason why Shane feels comfortable telling him this.

“And I did,” Shane remarks, and holds up his hand when Ryan opens his mouth to argue. “I did. At one point.”

Shane quiets again, gazing out the window. Ryan has a feeling he’s not looking at the view in front of him.

“But not like that,” Shane whispers.

From then on, he doesn’t say a word. Ryan uses the silence to think of what to say. It’s difficult: every sentence he comes up with misses the mark. He takes his time finding something that fits.

“Have you told anyone else this?” he finally settles on, after whole minutes have passed. He can’t think of anything better to ask.

Shane scoffs just slightly. “Like who? Scott?” He smiles thinly: “My mom?” He takes his own blanket as well, and wraps it around him like a cape. “God knows they’d tell everyone.”

“You think they would do that?” Ryan asks, mutely horrified. “Just – spread it around?”

Shane’s eyes are dull and silent. “Schaumburg is a pretty small community,” he divulges. “And I wasn’t looking to become the town whore.”

Ryan’s shaking his head, instinctively. “No one– You wouldn’t be the… ‘town whore’,” he protests, disgusted by those words passing his lips.

“Haven’t you heard?” Shane chuckles. “I–”

He goes quiet.

“Shane,” says Ryan, meaninglessly. “…Can I hug you?” At Shane’s nod, he laboriously crawls off his stupid air mattress and onto the bed. Shane remains unresponsive: Ryan has to hug him from the side, so his back twists like a pretzel. “I’m sorry,” he confesses, muffled in Shane’s neck. “I – I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me.”

There’s some shifting underneath the blankets, and then Shane’s hands come up to hug Ryan back. The position is still painful as hell: Ryan’s going to develop scoliosis at this rate.

“I didn’t want it to ruin things,” he admits into Ryan’s hair. “Was I wrong?”

Ryan pulls back. “Yes,” he insists so fiercely he surprises even himself. “You were wrong.” He leans precariously, almost falls backwards off the bed. Shane catches him, wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him closer. “It didn’t ruin anything,” Ryan argues.

Shane blinks placidly. “Well,” he observes, “I didn’t come.”

There’s a beat where Ryan is caught completely off-guard. Despite himself, he wants to laugh. He tries not to. Ryan bites his lip: a tiny smile still curls his mouth. Shane catches his eye and then he’s cracking up too, with a small shy smile that’s like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.

* * *

They are left at a strange impasse once more: long silences, but this time comfortable. So similar, yet worlds apart. It reminds Ryan of the timid flirting he would do in high school, like girls would pick up on his unspoken thoughts.

Few things feel unspoken now; Shane throws him a glance over the table at breakfast, lightly amused, and Ryan understands him perfectly.

Although it could be that Shane’s silent messages are just that transparent: “Well?” Ryan’s mother says excitedly, after breakfast. “Did you do it?”

Ryan feels a little reluctant to answer her. Besides, what does she want to hear? Details? “Do what,” he responds cautiously.

She’s practically beaming. “Mijo, the way you were _looking_ at each other – Hah, Jennifer will hate this!”

Say what? “Why would Jennifer hate that?” Ryan frowns.

Linda lends him a satisfied glance. “A new drama, right before her wedding?” She claps her hands together affectionately, exclaiming, “Madre mía, my boys!”

Ryan sort of – grimaces. This all feels so new, so tentative. “Mom, could you maybe… keep this on the down-low?” He scratches his head. “It’s – I don’t want to scare him away–”

His mother falls over herself to reassure him, swearing, “I won’t tell anyone, te prometo.” She mutters: “They’ll see for themselves.”

There’s not exactly anything Ryan can do about _that_ , so he goes to find Shane. His – boyfriend?? Sweet baby Jesus – is sitting on the couch talking with Jake, of all people. “Hey,” Ryan greets, sitting down. Shane turns to him, explaining, “Jake’s leaving today.”

“Damn,” Ryan says, like he didn’t know. Shane gives him a significant _look_.

_Poundtown_ , the devil on Ryan’s shoulder chimes, and Ryan has to try to keep his face neutral. For once, it’s his father that comes to his rescue. Steven proudly announces that since Jake is leaving, they’re eating the yaki-imo now. It’s already done: he got up at 6 am to put them on the grill.

Ryan splits one sweet potato with Shane, cut down the middle. His father gives them spoons, but Shane eventually moves on to eating it with his hands. Ryan watches his pale, long fingers pinch off chunks and put them to his mouth. In his chest there is no jealousy.

Even though they’ve barely done anything – one unfinished handjob doesn’t go for much, these days – Ryan hears the wordless agreement between them that they’re going to, one day. Shane wants him back. He doesn’t mind waiting: he’s waited this long, already. 

At about 4 pm Jake gets ready to leave. His parents fuss over him, but it’s clear he’s more than ready to go. Ryan hugs his brother and watches him pull out of the driveway. Shane waves until the car’s gone.

Ryan feels… unanchored, somehow. Like he’s a balloon floating untethered. That might just be him being content for the first time in a long while. It most likely is. Ryan’s spent so long pining over his best friend, wishing he could have him. He’s got Shane, now: everything else sort of fades in comparison.

It’s enough to make a man religious, to know that he can reach out and take Shane’s hand at will. Shane wouldn’t mind: he’d squeeze back, probably. God, to have Shane. How did it all happen so quickly? Just yesterday he was convinced he’d spend the rest of his life pining over his best friend.

His best friend. Ryan kissed his best friend. A childish glee sparks in his chest at the thought of it: _I won_ , it crows, _I got him!_ Ryan still can’t believe it. It feels like if he blinks too hard, he’ll displace the mirage, and Shane will fade right before his eyes.

Ryan indulges himself. Shane’s fingers are solid and strong, and his palm sits warm against Ryan’s. The man of the hour tosses an easy glance at Ryan and smiles in something approaching a carefree manner. Gently, his fingers squeeze around Ryan’s’.

* * *

They get through the rest of the day without any incidents. Then, just to spite him:

“ _Hey_ ,” Shane’s voice says quietly over the connection. “ _So this is really embarrassing_.”

Ryan puts the phone closer to his ear. “What’s up?” Shane is literally down the hall. How do you get in trouble showering? _Wait, no_ , he thinks too late, as images of grievous bodily injury flash in front of his eyes.

“ _So, uh, I managed to forget a shirt somehow_ ,” Shane mercifully interrupts, bless him, “ _and if I walk in front of your mom shirtless, I’m moving to Canada_.”

“Oh, well,” Ryan voices, very different images now flashing in front of his eyes, “We wouldn’t want that.”

Shane laughs awkwardly. “ _Hah. No_.”

Right, fuck. “Yeah!” Ryan assures, “I’ll – get you a shirt.”

If Shane finds his enthusiasm odd, he doesn’t show it: “ _Please hurry_ ,” is all he says.

Ryan hangs up and scrambles over to the duffle bag. _Shane’s_ duffle bag. It’s a standard black color, with lots of pockets. Shit, he should have asked where Shane keeps his shirts. What if there’s, like… compartments, and he has to rifle through Shane’s entire bag like a stalker? 

_This is not creepy_ , he tells himself, hands poised above the zipper. _Shane literally asked me to do this_.

The devil on his shoulder nods sagely: _Informed consent_.

Like ripping off a band-aid, Ryan unzips the bag – _zzppt_ – and is met with rolls of fabric. He doesn’t know what else he was expecting, honestly. Trying to keep it as efficient as possible, Ryan rifles through the clothing, but he has no idea which ones are shirts. He somehow manages to accidentally pull out an earbud case, a single blue sock, and –

A small, clear, Ziploc baggie. Filled with white tablets.

_…Oh shit_ , Ryan thinks, and waits like something will happen. _Shit_ , he repeats, when nothing does.

He’s standing in his mother’s house holding a bag of contraband. _Hide,_ his subconscious reflexively snaps, and Ryan scrambles to put the pills back into Shane’s duffle bag. _Oh shit_. “Oh shit, oh shit–” Ryan hisses, and shakes his hands like the drugs have left a trace on him. He’s aware this is a slight overreaction for someone who regularly smokes weed, but A) weed is legal in LA, and B) he has _no idea what those pills are_.

What if Shane has, like, contacts? What if it’s – something really bad? Legally, Ryan is now an accomplice. _This is so not informed consent_ , Ryan grouches.

He suddenly remembers he has something he’s supposed to be doing. His mind conjures up the image of Shane shirtless, shivering in the bathroom, stiff-nippled. Oops. Ryan paws through the clothes – taking care to stay far, _far_ away from the pills now tucked at the bottom – and finally grabs a gray bundle that feels like t-shirt fabric.

He hurriedly strides down the hallway and knocks on the bathroom door. The door creaks open to reveal Shane, indeed shirtless and pale. Ryan loses his train of thought somewhere around Shane’s collarbones.

“Thanks,” Shane says dryly, reaching out to grab the shirt, and Ryan reflexively jerks it out of reach.

“…Bro?” Shane asks, still shirtless. His hand hovers in the empty air.

Ryan manages to kick his brain into gear: “What the fuck was that in your bag?” he hisses, mindful of his parents’ bedroom door just down the hall.

Shane’s eyebrows jump up his forehead. “I don’t know, Ryan,” he quips, “Do you mean the 12-inch dildo, because I can explain, baby–”

“No,” Ryan grinds out, fed up. “Your _bag_ , Shane.”

Shane blinks: once, twice. He squints slightly. “Ah,” he comments. “The bag.”

“Yes, Shane, the _bag_ of whatever the fuck you brought into my mom’s house–”

“It’s just Xanax,” Shane explains quietly, like that is in any way reassuring. He lays a hand on Ryan’s forearm: “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have brought it into your mom’s house if I knew–”

“Well clearly you _knew_ , you had them,” Ryan snaps, “and those are illegal, Shane!”

Shane makes a dubious noise in the back of his throat.

Ryan leans back, raises his eyebrow like he learned from his mother. “No? Are they prescribed?” he asks curtly.

Shane tips his hand, _so-so_. “I was at one point prescribed Xanax,” he evades.

“You fucking–”

“Ryan,” his mother says pleasantly, from down the hall. The bathroom door immediately snaps shut in Ryan’s face, and he turns around to face his mom, anxiously crossing his arms. Speak of the devil.

“I know you’re not _canoodling_ with your boy in my hallway,” she states.

Ryan confirms, “No, of course not.” _Ma’am._

Linda blinks slowly; smiles courteously. “Then shut up,” she says crisply, and closes the door behind her.

After a moment, Ryan dares knock on the bathroom door with two knuckles, so soft it barely makes a sound. It creaks open, agonizingly noisy. Shane’s face is set in an understated worry: distant, stiff.

“…Five minutes,” Ryan warns, and walks back to their bedroom.

He’s sitting on his air mattress when Shane finally returns. He sure used all his five minutes, Ryan thinks, looking up at him. In the cheap lighting, Shane looks stretched out and pale. He’s carrying his clothes under his arm.

“In my defense,” he begins before Ryan can say anything, “I always bring them on all the trips we go.” Shane looks off to the side, uncomfortable. “I… didn’t really think through bringing them here.”

“I would hope not,” Ryan angrily remarks, but he’s weary. Really, he just wants to go to bed. He scrubs a hand over his face tiredly: “God, Shane.”

Shane sits down on the bed. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

Ryan drags himself forward and rests his face against Shane’s sweatpants-clad knee. After hesitating, Shane’s hand comes down onto Ryan’s head, softly brushing through his hair.

Ryan is so tired. Here seems as good a place to fall asleep as any, against Shane’s bony knee, but the other man seems to catch it: “Ah-ah,” he tuts, pushing Ryan towards the air mattress. “Get some sleep, tall child.”

A laugh whooshes out of Ryan as he just kind of… slumps onto the floor, face mushed into the edge of the air mattress. “I fucking hate air mattresses,” he groans, practically unintelligible against the plastic.

Shane, quietly: “Do you… want to sleep in my bed?”

Ryan musters up some energy to flop over onto his back so he can look at Shane. He only partly succeeds, but Shane helps him along with a foot-shove on his shoulder. “Thanks,” Ryan mumbles to the ceiling, and then, “With you.”

Shane nods, shoulders wound tight in what Ryan is beginning to learn is shyness. “With me,” he confirms modestly. “If we both fit.”

Ryan thinks the dimensions of his high-school bed can go fuck themselves. He is going to _make_ them both fit.

* * *

And so it comes to be that on the morning of their departure Ryan is filled with a sense of grim determination. “So,” he asserts, but it comes out muffled, so he has to pull his face out of Shane’s armpit. (What? It’s fine, Shane’s wearing a shirt. It smells good: sue him.) The bedroom is filled with early morning rays. He breathes in the dusty air.

“So,” he begins anew, “Are we coming out?”

Shane groans something unintelligible into the pillow. Ryan can’t even see him: he’s all crow’s nest hair and pale shoulders. To remedy this, he sticks his cold feet against Shane’s shins, and Shane immediately jerks back.

Blearily, he blinks and says, “Uh.” His voice is low and raspy when he’s just woken up: Ryan feels a little thrill in his stomach at the sound of it. Shane rolls onto his back, half asleep. “I don’t know,” he vaguely murmurs, eyes steadily sliding shut.

I mean, that’s fair. Ryan’s moved on to bigger and better things, anyway: Shane’s collarbone looks mighty tasty in the pale light, rising with every breath.

Yes, Ryan thinks. That can all wait. He has bucket list items to cross off.

* * *

As they leave the house, burdened with Tupperware of conchas and various leftovers, Ryan feels like he could fly. The sun’s out, the air is crisp: it’s almost like the world has forgotten it’s supposed to be winter, and just jumped right ahead to spring.

Ryan opens the car door so Shane can put down their duffle bags. He goes to the driver seat, turning the key to let the car warm up a little before they hit the road. When he pulls his head back out, Shane’s standing on the other side of the chassis, eyes closed against the bright sunlight. Like this, Ryan could believe Shane is some overgrown sunflower, swaying in the wind and soaking up the rays.

Ryan takes a moment to look his fill, and then checks on his boyfriend:

“How’s the weather up there?”

“Sunny,” Shane smiles, eyes crinkling. “No chance of rain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning** (Slut-Shaming, mention of Rape) **:** Ryan accidentally triggers Shane by saying that Shane “wants it”, while in a fully consensual context and situation. Shane remembers how Trevor used to verbally degrade him during sex, which turned into slut-shaming outside of sex. This slut-shaming was eventually used in victim-blaming Shane after a non-consensual incident.
> 
>   * [Oh my god, they were roommates.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-P0m0M_8pc)
>   * [Conchas](https://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/How-make-mexican-pan-dulce-conchas-5_2.jpg) are a Mexican pan dulce (sweet bread) and very popular. They take about 3 hours to make, which would just barely fit in the timeline. The word concha is also used as slang for, uh, [pussy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_profanity#Concha_/_Chucha_/_Chocha).
>   * The “tall child” line is from a [John Mulaney bit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pfKuZUiBJo).
> 

> 
> Things aren't magically fixed!! There's another chapter (or more?) to go.  
> 


	4. pursuit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter four! Featuring our first glimpse of their relationship, with Ryan simping as always, old-married-couple bantering, and the long-awaited angsty flashbacks. I’ve started making important sentences rhyme, like some sort of depraved Dr. Seuss.
> 
> Here’s where those tags really kick in. I have also added a couple new tags to reflect what will be happening in this chapter. I have two content warnings:
> 
> First, a Content Warning for an explicitly depicted **panic attack**. Shane sees Trevor in public and has a panic attack while he escapes the situation. He is ultimately fine.
> 
> Next, **Content Warning for rape** , in a very graphic flashback. This is the definition of triggering. In-depth content warning (therefore spoilers!) is in end notes. 

Ryan lives every day feeling like he’s bursting at the seams. His post-Christmas high lasted a whole _month_ this year – why wouldn’t it? He wakes up every day and stares up at the ceiling, in disbelief at what his life has become.

He can’t believe he actually got his number one wish – the thing that’s been on his wishlist for _years_ , now, really – for Christmas.

Shane sips his coffee slowly. “You know what people usually do on first-date sex?”

“Blowjobs?” Ryan suggests, right as there’s a spot of quiet in the café, which means he might as well have yelled it. The yoga mom at the table next to them gives him a scandalized look. Ryan sinks down into his seat.

Shane, oblivious, slurps a sip of his coffee. “Blowjobs,” he confirms, “Which doesn’t – work so well, with me.”

Ryan is about to fall over himself to reassure Shane blowjobs isn’t something he needs in their relationship – he respects Shane’s boundaries, they can uh, buy a fleshlight? Respectfully? – but the yoga mom is still staring at him like she’s seen a ghost.

Unfortunately, no veils have been thinned today, ma’am: it’s just Ryan Bergara discussing blowjobs in public. His mother would be so disappointed if she saw him right now.

“Oh,” Ryan replies inanely. “Oh, well, that’s – that’s so understandable, dude, I mean – You don’t have to, like – ”

“Don’t pull something,” Shane comments, giving him a look of worried pity, unnervingly similar to the look Ryan’s mom would give him when he went on for too long about ‘ _his favorite white boy_ ’, in her words. “I just thought you oughta know, if you really want to… do all this.”

God, but Ryan adores him. It’s the way Shane can just pull out weird, antiquated words like that, disregarding what other people may think of him. Shane’s just so unapologetically _himself_ , all the time, no matter how – to quote the man in question – ‘strange and off-putting’ it makes him.

As if to prove it, Shane takes another gulp of his coffee, bluntly ignoring the lady clutching her pearls at them. He looks at Ryan over the rim of his glasses.

“I do,” Ryan persists. “Of course, Shane. It doesn’t matter if – ” When in Rome, he supposes, “ – if you can’t do _blowjobs_ , or whatever.”

The yoga mom picks up her bag and leaves. Get with the program, lady: The Gays are allowed amongst polite company these days, and Ryan’s on a mission to obtain that dick. He can practically feel Tía Viktoria patting him on the back.

This is him, _getting it_. Shane had texted him that morning, all hey-let’s-meet-up-to-discuss-our-future-relationship-in-a-secondary-location, and Ryan hadn’t minded a bit. He understands that Shane’s cautious: he’s been burned before.

But Ryan will jump through as many hoops as Shane wants him to. He’s never been so… attached to a person, before. Some days it feels like madness. He used to scoff at the idea of true love like it was written in the books, where people would lay down their lives for each other. Who would stab themselves to death over a person they’ve only briefly known?

Now, Ryan understands it’s not so much about knowing the other person; it’s about knowing yourself. Shane came into his life like a hurricane, rearranging all his puzzle pieces, blowing them far out of sight. He flattened the houses Ryan had built in his mind, and Ryan was forced to rebuild them from the ground up, bigger, _bolder_. He’d changed him permanently, for the better.

Ryan thinks: he can’t imagine his life without his tall counterpart in it.

“I’m not here for your – your _mad blowjob skills_ , or whatever,” Ryan continues, heedless of the woman practically packing her bags for the cloister, “I’m here for _you_ , Shane. The… stupid parts of you. The nerdy parts.” He forces himself to say it: “God damn it Shane, I’m here for the Hot Daga you.”

Shane gazes back at him, guardedly. The man’s hands are tight around his coffee cup. There’s no obvious reaction to Ryan’s overly sappy speech. Ryan feels a bit embarrassed, actually: he’s glad the yoga mom wasn’t there to witness him pouring his heart out onto the table.

“You sure about that?” Shane only murmurs.

Tiredly, Ryan declares, “ _Yes_ , I’m sure, Shane.” It’s like Shane didn’t tell Ryan to his face, at Christmas, that he could _see_ Ryan drooling over him. Of course Ryan wants him. “I’ve known you for years, bud, I’m not going to change my mind now.”

Shane doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he lets it lie. “So we’re doing this, then?” the man asks instead, and Ryan thinks it might be the most wonderful sound he’s ever heard in his life.

“ _Yes_ ,” he swears, in a sunny café in downtown LA.

It hasn’t been all sunshine, of course: The other day Ryan was working at his desk, fixing up a True Crime script, when he realized out of the blue _why_ Shane was uncomfortable among his frat bro friends. Why Shane hated the gym, and went on runs instead.

Every step closer to understanding Shane is one step back, emotionally. It feels like he’s weighed down with grim realizations, storm-soaked and sodden with grief. In retrospect, it all seems so _clear_. Every déjà vu slots neatly into place. It makes him wonder how shitty of a friend he was to have missed the clues in the first place.

But Ryan doesn’t mind the rough weather: he can see clear skies up ahead. Somewhere at the end of this tunnel is a world where Ryan gets to wake up to Shane every day; where he goes on walks with him, and they eat dinner together.

And for the chance to make Shane a permanent fixture in his life, well; his mother called him stubborn for a reason.

* * *

_Organic or not organic_ , Shane thinks. _That is the question_.

On one hand, the organic bacon is free-range and probably healthier somehow. Might add a couple weeks to his life. On the other, the normal kind is cheaper.

Shane dumps the cheaper bacon in his shopping basket and moves on. He’s standing in front of the olives, zoning out thinking about work, when a woman tries to get to the canned artichokes so he moves out of the way, stepping out of the aisle, turning to the wide open vegetable section, and sees – tall – handsome – laughing – short hair – gray joggers – holding something – snapback –

Shane jumps behind the pasta aisle, heart thundering away in his chest. Trevor’s in this store. What’s he doing here? What’s he doing in California, even? Has he moved here? Shane’s hands are shaking. He was just trying to buy groceries; he didn’t know Trevor was here in the store right by Shane’s apartment –

Oh god, does he know this is where Shane lives? Is he looking for Shane? Looking right and left, Shane tries not to have a panic attack right here next to the rigatoni. He has no idea where Trevor is, he can’t see him – for all he knows, Trevor could be walking towards him right now, about to come around the corner –

Someone must have told him where Shane lived. Maybe his parents, or his friends. God, Shane can’t move again; he likes his apartment, he got it for a good price –

An old man walks into the pasta aisle and Shane tries to straighten up and look respectable, like he isn’t currently hyperventilating. The man must be able to tell: he looks at Shane strangely. Fuck, Shane’s acting like an absolute freak – he bumps into the shelves, a box of pasta drops to the floor, he doesn’t pick it up, fuck he’s _so_ sorry to the employees here –

Shane can’t just stand around, Trevor’s right there behind him. He’s going to find him. Frantically, Shane scans around for somewhere to hide. He tries to remember the layout of the store: the dairy aisle… the jams… yes, that might work, he can sneak around Trevor and get out before the man ever knew he was here.

With a plan of escape, Shane scurries over to the yoghurt, keeping an eye out all the while. He feels like he’s going to puke, fuck, he’s so scared – Shane almost crashes into a woman at the corner, quickly ducks out of her way. He’s tall as a goddamn streetlight, Trevor’s going to see him, god fucking damn it – Shane checks over his shoulder, but he’s safe. The jam aisle, now, passing the canned fruit, and he’s almost at the checkout he’s almost there he’s almost safe –

The checkouts are half empty. He won’t have to wait in line, good, but _fuck_ he can’t stand there out in the open, checking out where Trevor can clearly see him, he’ll stand out like a sore thumb. There’s nothing for it: he’ll have to abandon his groceries. Shane sets down his shopping basket, shit he’s so sorry for the underpaid employees that have to pick up after him, he’ll have to come back tomorrow to buy his groceries, if he even can shop here anymore fuck fuck fuck, he’ll just eat something in his freezer for dinner tonight –

Shane discreetly tucks his half-full shopping basket in a niche between the vitamins and reading glasses, fuck, sorry, and speedwalks towards the check-out. No one’s looking, he flashes his empty hands at a bored employee anyways, he’s lightly jogging out the door, he’s out, he’s free, he can breathe, the air’s warm, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe –

Shane ducks behind the store, with the empty parking spaces and the blue dumpster. He tries to catch his breath. It comes shallow, like it’s a flat petri dish, like someone’s chopped off the bottom of his lungs – Shane gouges fingernail marks into his palms, and tries not to panic over the fact that he will shortly asphyxiate –

He shuts his eyes. Forces himself to breathe, ignores his atrophied throat muscles constricting, ignores the small wheezing sounds he’s making, ignores everyone else in the world. He breathes.

It’s in moments like these that Shane wishes he’d picked up some vice, like smoking. It would help him calm down, since his body clearly wasn’t capable of doing it itself. Although that’s probably an awful idea: his breaths are shuddering out of his chest, still shaky. He can’t imagine cigarette smoke helping any.

He needs to get out of here. Trevor could come out at any moment, and see him breaking down next to the dumpsters. That would be a real laugh. Shane rights himself and is trying to put one leg in front of the other when his pocket buzzes. Quickly, he checks:

_Have you seen Fantastic Mr Fox??_

It’s from Ryan Bergara, his colleague. Shane’s only known him for two weeks, yet somehow his colleague managed to talk him into trading phone numbers. It doesn’t hurt that Ryan is funny, and shines bright like a beacon, and he’s also a movie geek, like Shane, and has big, round eyes and tan skin –

Shane puts his phone back into his pocket. He’ll answer later. His breaths have calmed, at least: they’re almost back to normal. Thankfully his hiding spot is shadowed, hidden from the burning sun. The wall is cool against his back. His heart seems to have gotten the message that Shane is not going to die right this very second.

Vigilantly, Shane watches the people walking out of the store, keeping an eye out for Trevor. He wants to leave, but what if he turns around right as Trevor comes out? And Trevor sees him? No, he can’t risk it: Shane lurks behind the corner of the store, watching from the shadows. It takes maybe ten minutes, painstakingly spent waiting, before he sees him, joggers, snapback, tall –

It’s just some guy.

It’s not Trevor.

* * *

It’s cold outside, Shane notices. He’s going soft.

He wouldn’t have flinched at this kind of weather in Schaumburg, but California has wriggled her way under his skin like an insidious mistress. She has him wearing a whole _coat_. A real one, even, not just a lined denim jacket.

A balmy sixty degrees suddenly feels like spring is dragging its heels. Ryan must be rubbing off on him, he thinks, and breathes a soft laugh out loud.

Yeah, Ryan, the man of the hour; the issue at hand. Shane decided to risk a brisk morning walk so that he could get him _off his mind_ , and not even two minutes later he’s thinking about him. Is this what he’s come to? Five years of building himself up, all for it to come crumbling down at the sight of a thin-skinned Californian.

His phone buzzes. Shane slips it out of his pocket: it’s another text from Scott. _Free this weekend?_ it says, and he swipes to dismiss it and turns off his screen.

He’s falling too fast. Five years, and for what? Barely two months into their relationship, Shane spends every waking moment thinking about Ryan. Sometimes he feels like a schoolgirl with a crush: fidgeting with his hair, sighing wistfully over the popular jock. _R +_ _S_ = true love and lots of babies, or whatever. What a cliché.

God, the whole baby thing. Shane squints against the dawn on the horizon. The way Ryan had looked at Lea… He obviously wants some ankle biters of his own. Ryan’s a white picket fence and two-and-a-half-kids kind of guy. It would be a hell of a thing for Shane to throw his stick of trauma into the wheel of Ryan’s life.

Ryan deserves better. He deserves not having to waste the rest of his years nursing Shane back to health, when he could be living the nuclear life of his dreams. Ryan could easily achieve a life like his parents’: happily married, in a nice big house, with lots of extended family. Kids, to pass on his bloodline… and to take care of _him_ , for once.

But apparently Ryan – stubborn, stubborn Ryan – is set on _Shane_.

Now they’re in a real pickle of a situation. Shane’s been waiting for years, hopeful heart hidden under layers of flannel and denim; and now he’s finally gotten what he’s been waiting for, what he wanted for Christmas, and he still _waits_. He waits for Ryan to come to his senses. He waits for Ryan to realize every second he spends waiting is time wasted.

The cold air is making his nose water. He sniffles, the only sound on an empty street. The worst part of it, Shane decides, is the knowing. Knowing the warm shade of Ryan’s eyes from close up, knowing the smoothness of his skin; the feeling of Ryan’s body around him.

If Shane was wise, he’d get the fuck out and never look back. More time spent with Ryan will only worsen the inevitable grief. For him, and for Ryan.

It’s a lost cause. Shane is – as seen on TV – an absolute moron.

* * *

One thing that hasn’t changed after Christmas – that’s the calendar Ryan lives by now, Before Christmas and After Christmas, BC and AC – is their movie nights. After work they’ll go to one of their apartments and watch some prime cinema, like they’ve done for years now. They still bicker about which movie to watch, and they still wholeheartedly agree on which type of popcorn; the only thing different is that Ryan gets to touch, now, instead of just pining in silence.

Ryan’s sitting on Shane’s couch, his boyfriend stretched out next to him with his feet pressed up against Ryan’s thigh. Shane’s wearing pink socks with little bananas on them. Ryan’s trying to focus on the movie, but he keeps getting distracted by the tall man next to him. Sprawled out like this, Shane looks languid and inviting.

Ryan imagines an alternate universe where he’s a rich douchebag: a trust fund baby, or something. Stock portfolio and all. How would people react if he walked into a party with Shane on his arm? It would be less arm candy and more of a... supersized candy cane situation. The height thing would only be exacerbated by putting him in heels: those perilous, strappy ones, that arm candy gals always seem to wear. 

He’s loosed the reins, now; Shane, in a long silky cocktail dress, sitting on a bar stool and popping maraschino cherries in his mouth. His legs would be shaved, his skin smooth and glittery – and at that point, Ryan drops a pillow on his lap and tries to focus on the movie again. 

Shane’s foot pokes his dick. Ryan catches said foot by the pink-and-yellow toes and gives his boyfriend a stern look. The pillow goes back on his lap. Shane smiles, almost coquettishly, and drops his head back onto the couch. “Why are you hiding it if we’re already together?” he chides lazily. 

Well, he supposes Shane has a point, but Ryan’s hiding more than just his boner. “I am so fucked up,” he announces to the bookcase. 

There’s a beat: then, Shane hums and leans forward to grab some more popcorn. “In which way?”

“I–” Ryan braces himself. “I keep imagining you in, like, slinky heels and women’s clothes.”

Shane squints. “Heels?” he asks dubiously. “At this point it’s becoming some sort of inferiority complex, dude.”

Ryan sneaks a glance: Shane seems perfectly chill, unconcerned. “What,” he asks, dreading the answer. He pulls Shane’s legs onto his lap.

“I already look like 432 Park Avenue,” Shane observes, with only a slight roll of his eyes. He gesticulates with a popcorn-filled hand. “Your ceilings are too low for this shit.” 

“ _That’s it?_ ” Ryan asks incredulously. “You’re not, like, worried about the maid costumes?”

Shane’s eyebrows jump up his forehead. “Maid costumes?” he enthusiastically echoes. 

_Lord help this man_ , Ryan groans, rubbing his eyes. He leans forward and gently faceplants into the nearest soft spot, which happens to be Shane’s flaccid dick. Inhaling slightly, he rubs his face against the sweatpant fabric. Shane, as always, shifts slightly to get his vulnerable bits away from Ryan’s pointy, pointy chin.

“You’re really not worried?” Ryan insists into Shane’s hipbone. 

It’s quiet: Ryan tips his face up, and sees his boyfriend picking at his fingernail. “Do–” Shane starts, then stops. Ryan waits for him to continue. The movie’s still playing some quiet dialogue in the background. Shane turns his face away, uncomfortable with the honesty, but Ryan’s head is in his lap: he’s privy to pretty much everything.

“Is it, like. Do you want, like, a woman–” he eventually manages, and Ryan’s quick to assure him, “No! No, I love your dick, man,” and actions speak louder than words, so he plants his face in Shane’s dick again. Patiently, Shane bucks him off once more. 

Shane keeps fidgeting with his hands, avoiding eye contact. Ryan Bergara, dog with a bone: “Do you want to talk about it?”

Shane groans, himself, and buries his face in the couch: “Talk about what,” Ryan thinks he hears him say. No amount of therapist’s appointments will endear Shane to the concept of talking about his feelings.

Nervously, Ryan strokes his palms over his boyfriend’s thighs, resisting the temptation to shut up. “I don’t– I fell in love with _you_ , Shane,” Ryan confesses, while looking at Shane’s lap, ironically. “I don’t want anyone else.” 

He checks: Shane’s peeking, just slightly, trying not to preen. Ryan squeezes the muscle in Shane’s thighs, feeling it yield under his grip. “Is it… Is that something you think?” he asks with trepidation.

It’s no secret that Ryan’s only been with girls before. His magnetic attraction towards Shane had sort of just come out of nowhere (like a meteor, or the baby Jesus). Suddenly it was there, and Ryan spent all his waking hours thinking about Shane’s arms, and his hands, and the little soft spot under his chin.

The first time they’d fucked, it had led to some complications. Namely:

“Do we… uh,” Ryan had stuttered, feeling out of his depth. “Who…?”

Shane looked at him, his face neutral. “Who tops?” he had deduced, and easily continued, “Do you want to top, Ryan?”

Ryan couldn’t say what made him hesitate: the answer should have been, by all accounts, an enthusiastic _yes_. He’d had no idea what he was doing. And yet he looked at Shane’s face, so carefully composed, and answered, “I want you to fuck me.”

Obviously, Shane isn’t stupid, so despite Ryan’s bravado he had gone ahead and bottomed. His eyes glimmered, though, with a strange satisfaction.

Presently, his eyes look sad.

Ryan knows Shane isn’t as confident as he likes to let on. Every once in a while, when he thinks Ryan’s distracted, his façade will slip, and he’ll just look… empty. Like a stranger in a foreign land, terrifyingly _lost_.

“Shane,” Ryan starts, but his boyfriend holds up a hand and thumps his head down on the couch.

“Opossum,” Shane announces, which is what he says when he wants Ryan to shut up and just listen. He stares up at the ceiling: all Ryan can see is the underside of his chin.

“I want to make it good for you,” Shane begins, alarmingly. “I don’t… I know I’m weird, and I can’t give you blowjobs–”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Ryan interrupts, grabbing Shane’s hands. Fuck the opossum. “What are you talking about? Don’t wear women’s clothes just for _me_.”

“I don’t mind wearing dresses,” Shane says confusedly, and Ryan snaps, “That is very much _not_ the problem.”

Shane quiets and looks a little hurt. Ryan lets go of his hands, and they immediately fly up to hug around his pale arms.

Sheepishly, Ryan explains, “I don’t want you to… to think you _have_ to do it to make me happy, or something.” He reaches out and tucks some of Shane’s hair behind his ear. “I’m already plenty happy with what we have right now.”

“But it could be better,” Shane says doggedly, and Ryan tries not to groan.

He decides to sacrifice his integrity: “Shane, I’m just happy you even let me touch you,” Ryan admits. Shane must know how hot he is, right? “I’d be happy if all I got to do, for the rest of eternity, was just – hump your leg, or something,” he even says, which is **_way_** too honest. From his head: _Ryan Bergara, I diagnose you with simp._

Ryan grimaces, but Shane looks thoughtful. “Remind me about that later,” he murmurs. “Anyways, shut up – Opossum.”

“I…” Shane tries, and then sighs explosively. He throws an arm over his eyes. “He made me hate every part of myself,” he methodically gets out. Every word is bitten off like it hurts. “And I don’t… I can’t believe that youlikemyweirdasspersonality,” he rushes.

Ryan raises his eyebrows. “What?” he says in disbelief: he _loves_ Shane’s weird ass personality. He’s told Shane this repeatedly.

“ _Shut up_ ,” Shane repeats. “He… He hated my singing, my history facts, all of it.” He gestures blindly: “He hated the way I looked, how skinny I was, how weird my face was. He said I looked like a ten-year-old girl, if a ten-year-old girl got in a car accident.”

With a sinking feeling in his chest, Ryan thinks of the Hot Daga; he thinks of Ruining History; he thinks of Unsolved. He thinks of this past Sunday, when Shane suggested he might grow a beard.

After a moment, Shane says: “I never want you to mention this again.” He divulges, “He would – _God_.” He covers his face, with both hands. “I would get scared, sometimes, back then. When I was younger. And I’d–” he laughs. “I would think I saw something, in the corner. Like a… like a ghost. And every time he’d try to fucking jump out at me, like there was actually something there.”

Ryan thinks of Unsolved.

“Christ,” Shane breathes, sitting up. He claps his hands firmly, like he’s reasserting his Midwesternness to the room. “That’s enough. What do you want to eat?”

* * *

In the dark of night, Ryan still thinks of Unsolved.

He lays on his back with his hands on his stomach. Next to him, Shane snores. There’ll be no sleep for himself, Ryan knows: he’s too busy unwrapping every weird quirk of Shane’s. In his mind, he turns him over like a diamond, studying all his facets.

He thinks of Shane, fastidiously spending hours on his stupid Hot Daga songs, giving it his all despite the fact that Ryan ‘hated’ it. Ryan remembers his surprise when he first heard how decent Shane’s voice actually was.

He thinks of Ruining History, of Shane pitching a whole show so he could talk about his beloved historical facts. Back when they first met, Shane would drop weird history anecdotes every once in a while: something like ‘Hey, pearls actually contain calcium carbonate, which makes fizzy water!’, and Ryan would fondly think ‘ _what a weirdo’_.

He thinks of Shane, steadfastly insisting, ‘Ghosts aren’t _real_ , Ryan’ every single time. 

His heart hurts.

* * *

Ryan’s no stranger to masochism – he has his gym membership to prove otherwise – but this is a special and unique kind of hell, crafted specifically for him.

“In approximately five minutes,” Ryan pants, trying not to get a faceful of gray slate, “I will be doing my best impression of a toddler.”

“Looking forward to it,” Shane rebuts, deftly scaling the rocks like he’s a damn mountain goat. Jesus H. Christ, Ryan laments. _My turn to pick_ , indeed.

Ryan would be appreciating his stellar view of Shane’s behind if he wasn’t in immediate mortal peril via falling. The mountainside seems to take his every step as a personal attack, and he keeps _slipping_ , his feet sliding on gravel, while Shane’s casually sauntering like it’s a stroll in the park. Is this what he does, those early mornings when he goes on ‘walks’? Is Shane secretly part-mountain goat?

Ryan usually loves their dates, and he loves Shane, but he’s beginning to feel distinctly humiliated. His thigh muscles are burning with the constant strain of catching himself from falling. A drop of sweat runs down his back: up ahead, Shane stops to enjoy the view while discreetly waiting for Ryan to catch up. Maybe Shane was onto something with his ‘hothouse flower’ comment the other day. It seems Ryan’s got himself a real man’s man – if Shane starts a fire, he’ll swoon right into his arms.

“You’re a scoundrel, Madej,” he pants when he’s within earshot. Ryan takes a moment to lean on his bent knees, not caring how it looks. His boyfriend will just have to deal with the embarrassment of being seen with a city slicker.

Shane’s expression is mild as always. “Who, me?” the bastard actually says, and if Ryan had the energy, he’d take off his sneaker to threaten Shane with the chancla like his mom did to him.

Who takes a person _hiking_ on a date? Ryan doesn’t even know which deity to curse for making Shane go all… Alex Honnold on him.

 _You did this to yourself_ , the devil on Ryan’s shoulder reminds him. _You chose this absolute golden retriever of a man. You’ll have to take him for walkies, now._

He’s convinced Shane’s doing it on purpose: every time he gets closer, Shane jumps a little bit further away. He’s like the carrot to Ryan’s horse, which isn’t that flattering a comparison, now that Ryan thinks about it.

“Twenty questions,” Ryan warns when enough time has passed. He has to yell it, because his boyfriend’s, like, ten miles away. “You hear me?”

Shane yells back, “Yeah, I hear ya.” The son of a bitch – which Ryan can now say in good conscience – doesn’t look intimidated at all. He just shades his eyes from the sun and waits for Ryan to haul his ass up the mountain.

Okay, fine, it’s not a mountain, but there are lots of rocks and it’s steep as fuck. The last thing Ryan needs is a rhinoplasty, in this economy. Shane’s arms hang relaxed at his sides as he easily jumps from rock to rock. (Ryan supposes he doesn’t have to worry about the rhinoplasty.) It almost looks like he’s flying, it’s so easy. Ryan himself is doing a wonderful impression of a zombie, hands up like he’s trying to catch himself if he falls.

“Morning person or night person?” Ryan asks first, because he’s beginning to wish he hadn’t gotten up this morning.

“Both,” Shane unexpectedly answers.

Ryan frowns. “How can you be a morning person _and_ a night person?”

“I’m immortal, Ryan. I don’t sleep,” Shane answers flatly. “Oh, you haven’t heard?” he mimics.

Ryan rolls his eyes. Shane sleeps, alright: the man could bring down a barn with his snoring. At times it gets so dire Ryan worries about noise complaints, never mind his _own_ sleep. When he gets saggy and old, he’ll just blame it on Shane’s snoring depriving him of his beauty sleep for twenty years.

“You make me a night owl,” Ryan simply leaves it at, and tries to think of another question.

When in doubt, go with a classic: “Favorite food?”

“Oatmeal,” Shane says just to mess with him. "Throw some pecans on there, make it a meal." Ryan doesn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting, and instead drolly remarks, “I’m sure my mom will be delighted to hear that.” Next Christmas, it would be hilarious if Ryan's mom made tamales for everyone else and then brought out a bowl of oatmeal for Shane. (Knowing the man, he'd probably _love_ it.)

Shane chuckles dryly and leaps a couple rocks forward. Ryan looks at his back and is very, very tempted to pester him with an ‘ _Are we there yet?’_

His boyfriend’s lean back shifts deftly under his blue t-shirt. Ryan can almost see his shoulder blades through the fabric. Shane’s shoulders are heaven on earth: he’s lucky he isn’t facing Ryan, because he’s at the point where the sight of Shane’s collar bones might make him drool. God, it’s like he’s sixteen again, perpetually horny.

 _You’re a real horndog, Bergara_ , Ryan thinks, watching Shane skip up the path, lost in his own little world. He’d make a joke about Shane’s head being in the clouds, but that’s just low-hanging fruit.

“Favorite drink, then,” Ryan tries, because he’s feeling a tad thirsty.

“Oh, it’s gotta be Squirt, baby!” exclaims Shane, and Ryan tries to resist thinking about that sentence too hard. Shane means the soda. Totally PG.

“Trash,” Ryan grumbles instead. “The best soda’s _Coke_. And my favorite drink is coffee.” He’s chugging, like, four cups a day right now. Wonder why.

Shane’s slowing down ahead of him, walking over to a wooden bench. They’ve got a great view from here: there’s forest, and water, and the sun’s casting it all in a warm glow. Ryan joins Shane in sitting on the bench.

“What’s your favorite season?” Ryan asks, his hand shadowing for the sun. He squints against the harsh light. “Mine’s summer.”

“Summer,” Shane mutters distractedly, rummaging through his bag. “Too.”

He finally finds what he’s looking for: a granola bar. “Here, babe,” he says, giving it to Ryan. “Something better to do with your mouth.”

 _Well_ then. Ryan takes the bar and slowly opens the wrapper. “Favorite, uh…” Ryan can’t think of anything. “Favorite person.”

Now it just looks like he’s fishing. Ryan stares at the view and tries not to go puce. _Good one!_ his brain mocks. In his defense, he had meant, like, George Washington or something.

Shane shoots him an amused glance. “Do you think I’ll get brownie points if I say God?” he ponders, drinking some water.

“No, but you’ll get _real_ brownies if you say my mom,” Ryan quips right back.

Shane laughs at him, a stupid dog-sounding bark. “Yes, Ryan, my favorite person dead or alive is _your mom_.”

Ryan waspishly takes a bite of the granola bar. He walked right into that one.

With Ryan’s mouth full of oats, Shane finally gets some peace and quiet. There’s nothing but the sound of birdsong and the wind rustling the trees, out here. The air almost feels… empty, without the constant sound of traffic. Ryan has never quite gotten used to the great outdoors: clearly that doesn’t apply to Mr. Boy Scout, over here. Ryan watches his boyfriend lean his head back and close his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Like this, he’s completely serene. Shane looks so vulnerable when his face is slack; it takes away some invisible barrier he’s built around himself to keep people from looking too closely. His brow is smooth, the fine wrinkles around his eyes faint. The sun lights his eyelashes and turns them blonde at the tips. He’s beautiful.

Ryan chews his damn granola bar, shutting up for the moment. It’s just them, and the birds, and the wind in the trees, and Ryan falls a little bit deeper in love.

* * *

Early mornings like these are made from faint light through the curtains, rumpled sheets and _Shane_ , _Shane_ , _Shane_. 

Shane’s body, Shane’s skin, Shane in and around him. Shane’s sensible white sheets.

Ryan wishes he could wake up to this every morning.

He moves his legs so he can feel the cotton fabric against his legs. Much like the sunlight seeping into the room, the bedsheets are warm and soft. The rustling sound makes Shane stir slightly, leaning back into Ryan’s embrace. Ryan drops small kisses across Shane’s pale shoulder; his skin is freckled and soft against Ryan’s lips.

After Shane comes, he’s usually content to sprawl out like a ragdoll, long limbs relaxed atop the sheets. It almost looks like he’s fallen asleep. Ryan, however, is energized. He can’t fathom why; Shane apparently regresses his libido to his sixteen-year-old self.

Ryan savors the moment, and the feeling of his boyfriend in his arms, but a prickling urge still sits under his skin. In front of his face is Shane’s nape, bared to the air: Ryan seizes the opportunity, rubbing his cheek over Shane’s neck. It’s one of the odd habits Shane indulges when he’s in the mood.

Ryan himself can’t explain the desire: all he knows is that he sees Shane’s pale, unblemished throat and _wants_. If that means he rubs against Shane’s neck like a bear up against a tree, so be it.

He smells clean. Ryan treats himself and sticks his entire face into Shane’s hair, inhaling the scent of his shampoo, distantly hearing his boyfriend whuff a laugh at him. “Ryan,” Shane complains half-heartedly, his gruff morning voice quiet.

“Your hand is on my nipple,” Shane murmurs. Ryan tries to pinch it, but his boyfriend slaps him off. Those big, strong hands easily catch Ryan’s wily fingers. Ryan kneads Shane’s fingers in his, breathing in the scent of his skin, and appreciates the fact that his boyfriend is the size of a sequoia.

Shane’s bigger than him vertically, of course, but that also means he’s narrower. After all, a man can only have so much mass. His torso’s lean, his arms are light – all in all, he is Ryan’s perfect cuddle pillow.

Eventually the rumbling of his stomach forces Ryan away from his little spot of Eden. He rolls out of bed, groaning lazily, and leaves Shane to his orgasm-induced coma. Ryan wanders out to the kitchen, thinking he’ll make eggs or something. Maybe Shane will even have spinach in his fridge, so Ryan can make him his gross spinach omelette.

First, however, he needs his morning fuel. While Ryan’s coffee is a walk in the park – capsule, Keurig, boom – Shane’s morning tea is shaping up to be quite an endeavor. He sets the kettle to boil, but then can’t find the tea box. Ryan scans the kitchen cabinets for the chamomile tea (which feels like adding insult to injury, but it’s what Shane likes) and comes up empty.

After five embarrassing minutes of quietly rummaging through Shane’s kitchen, Ryan finally spots it; the tea sits on a top shelf, out of reaching distance. The yellow box stares smugly down at him. Ryan makes an attempt in vain, stretching up on his tippy toes. The tea box lies just barely out of reach, taunting him: his fingers even _brush_ it.

“Ryan,” Shane exclaims, pleased. Ryan guiltily snatches his hand away, like his boyfriend won’t have seen him practically climbing the countertops. The taller man looks extra sleepy-eyed this morning, soft around the edges. His pajamas hang loose around his body, exposing slivers of pale skin to the air. Shane finally notices the tea box taunting Ryan, and murmurs, “Oh, sorry,” walking up behind Ryan to grab it.

As he stretches out his long arm, his body presses Ryan into the countertop, practically flattening him. Ryan stares at the sink and tries not to think about Shane’s warm hips against his ass. _Down, boy,_ he warns his eager libido, resigned to what has become a routine habit.

Unaware, Shane retrieves the chamomile tea, apologizing, “I shouldn’t have put it there.” Shane is so warm through the thin fabric of his pajamas. “Don’t know what I was thinking,” he remarks with a kiss to the top of Ryan’s head.

Sometimes Ryan feels like an old creep, lusting over his boyfriend just trying to live his life. Although it should be the other way around, since Shane is a deal older than him – maybe Ryan could be his… Cabana boy? At Shane’s beck and call?

God, if he keeps thinking about this, he’s going to have to excuse himself to the bathroom, and then his dick will fall off in protest. _Here lies Ryan Bergara, who died at the ripe old age of 28 from being such a fuckin’ horndog._

What a way to go. Ryan sips his coffee, willing his dick not to stir, and looks at Shane pour boiling water into a mug. The chamomile tea has been acquired at last. Shane blows on it, eyes closed, while the kitchen fills with the light of sunrise.

It’s good. Ryan would live in this forever, if he could.

* * *

The worst day of Shane’s life happens on the 24th of September.

He comes home from a boring day at work to find Josh sitting on their couch. Trevor’s friend grins when he sees Shane, tossing out a hello. “Hey,” Shane answers. “What’s up?” He hadn’t known they were having guests over. Did he forget a game night or something?

“Hey, babe,” Trevor greets, walking over for a brief kiss. When he pulls back, he’s smiling: “I got you a gift.” When Shane doesn’t catch his drift, he gestures grandly towards Josh sitting on their couch. Josh waves.

Shane laughs weakly, confused. He pulls Trevor closer, so they can talk in private. “What do you mean?” he whispers. At Trevor’s affront, he reassures, “I mean, thank you. But I – don’t understand what he’s here for?”

At that Trevor grins, putting his hands on Shane’s waist. “Remember what you said about having a threesome?” He points a thumb at Josh. “Ta-da!”

Shane… doesn’t know what to say. “Oh,” he says, but follows it up with, “But – Josh? We know Josh. I don’t – What if it’s awkward, with–”

“Come on, Shane,” Trevor dismisses, squeezing Shane’s waist. “He’s totally up for it! And he’s good, I promise.” He tilts Shane’s face up when the other man tries to look away, and kisses him. “You don’t even have to fuck him,” he reassures, “Just let him watch.”

Shane swallows. “But I don’t – I _know_ Josh.”

Trevor frowns, confused. “What’s wrong, Shane? You said you wanted a threesome, here’s your fucking threesome. Josh is good, he’ll take care of you. Don’t you like Josh?” he asks, raising his voice so that the man in question can hear him from the couch. Josh looks up from his phone and watches Shane questioningly.

“Oh! No,” Shane reassures, looking at Josh. “No that’s not – I like you, Josh, that’s not–”

“Then what’s the problem?” Trevor gripes. Satisfied, Josh goes back to his phone. Shane hopes he doesn’t post a picture of this on his story.

“I just – he’s my friend.”

Trevor gives him a stern look. “Well, what do you want, then? Are you going to tell him to leave? That’s rude as hell, Shane, you’re gonna blue-balls him?”

“Just give him a blowjob, at least. For his troubles.” Trevor walks over to the couch, leaning against the armrest. “It’s fine, babe, I’ll be here the whole time. C’mere.” He gives the floor in front of Josh a significant glance, and then looks at Shane.

“What?” Shane asks numbly. “No.”

Trevor sighs impatiently, gesturing for Shane to come sit. “ _Come here_. What’s wrong with you today, huh? Did you have a bad day at work?”

“They’re all bad,” Shane comments aimlessly, as he slowly walks over to Trevor. Once he’s within range, Trevor grabs his shoulders and gently pushes him down to sit on the coffee table. “Maybe that’s it, huh?” he suggests, massaging Shane’s shoulders. “Work sucks, you’re stressed. Let’s destress.”

At this point, Josh has put his phone down. He’s leaning forward in his seat, expectant. Trevor claps, twice, and it rings out sharp in their living room. “Come on, let’s go. Don’t be shy, Shane – I know you suck dick like a pro.” Mildly, he puts a hand on Shane’s back and urges him down. Shane slowly slides off the coffee table, landing on his knees in front of Josh. 

Shane tries to swallow: his throat is dry. “Trevor–” he begins, but has to clear his throat.

“Didn’t you tell me just last night that you wanted to suck someone else’s dick for me?” he asks, for everyone to hear. He laughs: “Babe, come on, you wanted it so badly last night. Don’t deny it.”

Shane can’t breathe. Both Trevor and Josh are staring down at him, waiting. “Trevor,” he attempts hoarsely, and the man rolls his eyes before grabbing Shane’s hand and placing it on Josh’s fly. “You’ve done this a thousand times, babe,” he soothes.

When Shane stays frozen, like a deer in headlights, Trevor stands up and pats his head comfortingly. He leans down to say in Shane’s ear, “Hey, tell you what. Would it be easier for you to suck my dick first?”

Shane nods mutely, because he’s right: it would be easier. His stomach is roiling. He’s terrified he’s going to puke right in Josh’s lap. Trevor presses an affectionate kiss to his forehead and straightens up. Easy as anything, he unzips his fly and puts his hand on Shane’s head to press him closer. “He’s shy,” he comments to Josh, who laughs in response.

Distantly, Shane is aware that everything’s going a little… shaky. “Put on a show,” Trevor instructs from above. Shane leans in and presses a weak kiss to Trevor’s cock, through the thin layer of his underwear. He’s shaking; he can’t breathe.

“Hey, come on,” Trevor reprimands, and pats Shane’s cheek sharply to wake him up. Josh is watching. “Don’t be such a pussy. How many times you sucked my dick before, huh?” When Shane says nothing, just stays still, Trevor sighs. “He was _begging_ for it last night,” he tells Josh, who responds, “Nah, bro, I believe you.”

Shane feels far, far away. He feels blurry. There are cold, itchy streaks on his face – tears, he realizes. “Sorry about him,” Trevor huffs, from miles away. “The whore’s up for it, usually.”

Then, Trevor is close: “You’re embarrassing me,” he hisses, right in Shane’s ear, and grabs a fistful of his hair. Maybe it’s the pain that snaps Shane back into it; he inhales, shaky, and suddenly chokes on a sob. “Trevor,” he protests wetly, and his boyfriend shoves his head into Josh’s lap.

“You’re pathetic,” he notes. “What the fuck are you doing? You asked for this yourself.”

Shane did: yesterday, he moaned around Trevor’s fingers, “Yes, I want it, please. Trevor – uh, fuck, please!” He had whimpered and ground up. “You want it,” Trevor grunted, fucking him harder, Shane wailing like the whore he was.

Shane now sobs: he has never regretted anything so much in his life. “Please don’t,” he begs senselessly, gulping for breath like a child crying. He can’t breathe. His skin’s crawling, there’s something wrong with him. He can’t breathe.

“Jesus fuck, Shane,” Trevor complains. “You’re unbelievable. You literally _begged_ me for this.” He grabs Shane by the scruff and pushes him off Josh, and Shane collapses on the carpet. He hides his face in his arm: he can’t stand them seeing him like this. He can feel Josh staring.

“Fuck, dude,” Josh says as he stands up, and laughs. “You should get a new one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Trevor grumbles, playfully pushing him as they walk towards the door. Shane tries not to choke on his own sobs and die. He can hear himself: he sounds pathetic, gulping for breath, making small animal sounds. His entire body is wracked with shivers.

“Sorry about this,” Trevor mutters more genuinely. He gives Josh a bro-hug at the door. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him. Don’t tell anyone, yeah? I’ll get you your blowjob.”

Shane is consumed by a crippling terror. He doesn’t know if Trevor means him, or if he’s going to buy Josh a whore. He grips the shag rug of the carpet, trying to center himself. He’ll die if he has to do this all over again, he’s sure of it. Shane can hear Trevor’s footsteps: he recoils, but Trevor’s kick still catches him in the head.

“What the fuck was that?” Trevor hisses, shoving Shane back down to the floor. Shane wishes he were smaller, so he could crawl under the couch and hide with the dust bunnies. As he is now, he’s taking up too much space, cowering against the couch. He’s an easy target.

Trevor grabs his wrists, forcing him down onto the ground. He pushes Shane’s face into the carpet and puts his knee on Shane’s back, pressing with his entire body weight. “You fucking whore. Are you wet for me, bitch? Are you wet? You better fucking be,” he growls, pulling down the waistband of Shane’s pants.

Shane’s sobbing. He can’t breathe. He’s going to die. He twists, frantically, thrashes like a prey animal to escape, and miraculously Trevor’s knee slips – Shane claws his way free. “Don’t!” he screams, hysterical, when Trevor makes to tackle him again. “Please don’t,” Shane sobs. His lungs must be filled with water: they’re shallow, useless.

Trevor pauses and stares at him with pure hatred in his eyes. He sneers in disgust. “You fucking bitch,” he seethes, and makes to spit at him: Shane flinches hard. Trevor stops, satisfied.

Trevor sits back on his heels, then gets up. His face is empty, unyielding. He stares down at Shane for what must be minutes. Shane is trembling coming off the adrenaline. He presses his back into the couch and tries to stop crying. Trevor keeps staring at him.

Finally, Trevor walks away, towards the kitchen. “You’re putting out tonight,” he comments. Faintly, there’s the sound of the fridge opening. “What do you want for dinner?” Trevor hollers.

Shane can’t answer. He shakes against the couch, and tries to catch his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning for sexual assault:** Shane has a flashback to when Trevor initiated a threesome without Shane’s consent. Trevor tries to force Shane to give Trevor’s friend a blowjob, but Shane has a panic attack and can’t do it. Trevor then verbally abuses him in front of the friend. Shane briefly blames himself for this happening. Trevor is manipulative and gaslights Shane the entire time.
> 
> **NOTES:**
> 
>   * Uh… sorry.
>   * The [pink banana socks](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/3b/81/89/3b8189135644be9cd119a677040c05fd.jpg) are real, and I own them.
>   * If it wasn’t obvious, Shane’s coping mechanisms are A) making everything into a joke, so he can’t be genuinely made fun of, and B) taking everything Trevor hated about him and turning it up to eleven to reassert his autonomy.
>   * [432 Park Avenue](https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.skyscrapercenter.com/thumbs/65906_500x792.jpg) is a blight on New York. The architect literally modeled it after a [trash can](https://www.wired.com/2015/06/nycs-1-3b-supertall-skyscraper-inspired-trash-can/).
>   * The “calcium carbonate = fizzy water” is a reference to [this tumblr post](https://i.redd.it/hyyx0k6ixmn11.png), which is itself referencing the story about [Cleopatra’s pearl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Banquet_of_Cleopatra). (For those interested, it is indeed possible that Cleopatra’s pearl may have dissolved in vinegar, but not instantly as Pliny the Elder describes. It would have taken hours to dissolve, and there should have been grinding involved. Source: [1](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38536846) [2](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/journals/CJ/52/5/Cleopatras_Pearls*.html) )
> 

>   * [Alex Honnold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Honnold): great rock climber, [huge hands](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DzzuakGWsAIGHee.jpg:large).
> 

>   * [Oh, you haven’t heard?](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/351/895/d14.png)
>   * Shane actually does [snore](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thR7IhHV554&t=14m33s), and he does indeed like [oatmeal](https://twitter.com/shanemadej/status/1363897419193192448) and [Squirt](https://twitter.com/shanemadej/status/1362272013214093321).
> 



End file.
